To Susan Poser, President of Hofstra University,
The New York City Higher Education Labor Movement looks at the events taking place at
Hofstra with genuine concern. For over 50 years Hofstra’s faculty and administration have
worked together to solve issues of governance, pay, benefits, and working conditions while
maintaining a collegial and constructive relationship that allowed Hofstra to become a respected
private institution with a record-breaking number of collective bargaining agreements signed. We
are writing to urge you to bargain this year in that same spirit.
The university administration is claiming a budget crisis that seems to disproportionately burden
the faculty. While compensation for high-level administrators has risen over 23% since 2019,
faculty forewent a contractually bargained raise to help alleviate the impact the COVID-19
pandemic had on the university in 2020. While the university endowment has almost doubled its
size in the last five years, faculty are asked to increase their healthcare contributions
substantially, give up a portion of the employer’s contribution to their pensions, and accept pay
cuts with raises that fall under the inflation rate. Hofstra faculty, represented by the AAUP
chapter, are the ones making the university work; these proposals and the heavy-handed tactics
the administration is using to demand concessions from them and dramatically alter their work
culture, is just another example of the line of attacks workers and students are facing from
administrations and governments alike.
The undersignatory unions insist that Hofstra University administrators bargain in good faith,
with serious proposals to improve working conditions for faculty, and the educational and
research experience for the university community as a whole.
ACT-UAW Local 7902, New York University, The New School
NYU AAUP, New York University
Fordham AAUP
NJIT PSA/AAUP, New Jersey Institute of Technology
SJU-AAUP, St. John’s University
Adelphi AAUP
Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, City University of New York
Columbia University AAUP
Rutgers AAUP-AFT
SVA, Faculty United UAW, School of Visual Arts
Manhattan and Old Westbury chapters of the NYIT-AAUP, New York Institute of Technology
NYU Contract Faculty United-UAW