In today\u2019s news and commentary, Queens College faculty protest budget cuts, UAW holds a presidential debate, and the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference announce their support of the Protect College Sports Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week, faculty members at Queens College, the largest City University of New York (CUNY) campus in the borough,\u00a0began picketing<\/a>\u00a0in protest of widespread layoffs and budget cuts. According to the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union that represents CUNY faculty and staff, adjunct faculty budgets are in danger of being slashed by as much as\u00a040 percent<\/a>, with cuts also\u00a0reducing student access<\/a>\u00a0to some library services and even chemistry labs. Like other CUNY campuses Queens College has seen a\u00a0sharp reduction<\/a>\u00a0in enrollment since the pandemic, leading administrators to slash the number of classes offered by\u00a0nearly 4,000<\/a>. Faculty members, however, say that even programs whose enrollment isincreasing<\/a>, such as early childhood education or information services, are being cut. Rather than place the blame on declining enrollment, union leaders\u00a0pointed to<\/a>\u00a0board mismanagement and the excessive promotion and hiring of administrators as the true reason for the cuts. The protesting faculty members have the support of a number\u00a0Queens elected officials<\/a>, including Assemblymember Claire Valdez, the Democratic nominee for New York\u2019s 7th\u00a0Congressional District.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Thursday, the UAW\u00a0held a debate<\/a>\u00a0among the six candidates for the union\u2019s upcoming presidential election. While current UAW President Shawn Fain\u00a0downplayed<\/a>\u00a0the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into whether he took actions to impermissibly benefit his fianc\u00e9e, the other candidates on the stage\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0Fain for creating a distraction and sowing distrust of union leadership. Fain also\u00a0highlighted<\/a>\u00a0his record of delivering contract wins\u2014including the 2023 agreement with the Detroit automakers that secured workers a 25 percent raise\u2014and\u00a0reiterated<\/a>\u00a0his reasons for supporting the UAW\u2019s organizing efforts among graduate students, with the union spending up to 50 percent of its organizing budget on higher education. Ballots will be sent to members starting this month, and results are expected in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n On Friday evening, the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference (SEC)\u00a0agreed<\/a>\u00a0to support the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), breathing new life into what could potentially be the most extensive federal regulation of college athletics in decades. For weeks, lawmakers and the two conferences had been negotiating over key terms, with the summer Congressional recess that begins on August 7th\u00a0and lasts for five weeks looming. Now, there is a chance Senate Majority Leader John Thune brings the bill to a vote before the summer recess starts, though it is\u00a0unclear<\/a>\u00a0if the PCSA has the 60 votes it needs to pass or whether the bill will be able to be squeezed in on time. Among the PCSA\u2019s\u00a0key provisions<\/a>\u00a0is an antitrust exemption that would allow the NCAA and its member conferences to enforce rules regarding transfer limits, NIL compensation, and athlete eligibility. Crucially, the bill fails to give college athletes status as employees, the\u00a0subject<\/a>of the NLRB\u2019s 2015\u00a0Northwestern University\u00a0decision. As a result, the AFL-CIO\u00a0opposes<\/a>\u00a0the bill, arguing that it \u201csilences college athletes voices\u201d and \u201cundermines their right to collective bargaining.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In today\u2019s news and commentary, Queens College faculty protest budget cuts, UAW holds a presidential debate, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-312932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}