Members of the Professional Staff Congress flooded the streets yesterday demanding a fair contract with the City University of New York. The rally drew 700 people insisting that after two and a half years with no contract and four years without a raise CUNY needs to give its teachers a better offer.

[Bowen 1]: "The best offer that we had from management is still below the level of inflation so it would actually add up to a salary cut."

Barbara Bowen is president of the Professional Staff Congress. Her union is holding a rally today in support of the striking graduate employees at Columbia University. Graduate employees there are demanding better health care and the right to organize with the United Auto Workers. Graduate employees at Yale are also on strike in the first multi-campus job action ion Ivy League history. Bowen said she hopes these actions will highlight the fact that universities are often poor employers.

[Bowen 2] "Higher education institutions need to act like responsible employers. They have a major public responsibility and they are major recipients of public dollars, even the private ones, and it's time that they acted responsibly."