CUNY Rising Protests Intensify

CUNY professors, students and staff took to the streets of Manhattan to demand money and respect from Albany. Text, video, photography by Demi RodriguezOn March 10^th, students, faculty and staff from CUNY schools came together to fight for funding, contracts, and raises. They met in front of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s midtown Manhattan office, and marched down to the Community Church of New York on 35^th street.https://youtu.be/sWUUH2HKDngEarlier this year, the governor proposed a $485 million budget cut for CUNY senior colleges, even as CCNY and other colleges continue to operate in crisis mode, students face the real possibility of another tuition hike and professors have been without a union contract -- or raises -- since 2010.Amid chanting, music and calls for a strike, Barbara Bowen, head of PSC CUNY, the faculty and staff union, urged protestors to stick together and stay strong.  “What gives the PSC leverage in negotiations in Albany, City Hall and CUNY's corporate headquarters is our track record of being strategic, acting together, and being willing to take risks for what we believe in,” she said.Additional assistance by Curtis Ashley and Jeff Weisinger