Some 50 CUNY professors and their supporters were arrested during a wage protest outside the college’s East 42nd Street administrative offices Wednesday night, police and college officials reported.
Cops snapped plastic zip cuffs on protesters who had sat down or stood with linked arms in front of the double doors to the office building between Second and Third avenues housing CUNY’s central administration. They were taken to Police Headquarters for processing, officials said.
It is expected that the protesters will be given disorderly conduct summonses and released, a law enforcement source told The Post.
An additional 100 people remained behind NYPD barricades, many holding signs reading, “CUNY Needs a Raise!” and wearing black T-shirts reading, “Five years without a contract hurts our students.
The protest followed a failed collective bargaining session earlier Wednesday, at which CUNY made a six percent wage increase offer, a source told The Post.
“The union’s initial response was that the proposal is completely inadequate and will further endanger academic quality at CUNY,” the Professional Staff Congress of the American Federation of Teachers said in a press release.
CUNY has 25,000 faculty and professional staff and currently has 500,000 students enrolled, the statement said.
“Their contract with CUNY expired in 2010,” the statement said.
“7,600 full-time CUNY faculty earn salaries that lag far behind those at comparable universities in the region, that don’t cover 6 years of inflation and rent hikes.
“4,400 professional staff and 13,000 low-wage, part-time adjunct faculty, who teach more than half CUNY’s courses, also haven’t had a raise in 6 years,” the statement said.