C.W. Post faculty OKs wage freeze

Full-time faculty at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University approved a five-year contract Sunday that calls for a wage freeze in the first year and small increases after that.

The 80-15 vote ended a labor dispute that included a four-day strike last week, the third walkout in a decade for the campus.

The faculty, members of the C.W. Post Collegial Federation, approved the contract after several hours of discussion Sunday.

"I'm not happy with it, but I'll live," said union president Harvey Kushner, a criminal justice professor. "Professors are anxious about not hurting their students."

Affected classes are expected to resume Monday, the school said. The Brookville-based school serves 7,000 students.

The new contract calls for a 1 percent increase in base pay in the second year, a 1.5 percent increase in the third year and 2 percent increases in years four and five.

Other details were not immediately available.

Some of the school's 311 full-time faculty members elected to work during the strike, school spokeswoman Rita Langdon said. Part-time adjunct faculty remained on the job because they belong to a separate union with a contract that bans sympathy strikes.

Before the strike, the full-timers' union had rejected a five-year contract that included a wage freeze in the first year and a one-time payment equal to 3 percent of pay in the second year. The old contract expired Aug. 31, and the faculty had sought a three-year pact.

"We have reached a fair and equitable agreement that is in the best interest of our campus community," C.W. Post provost Paul Forestell said Sunday in a statement. "We look forward to renewing our collaboration with faculty to serve the academic needs of our students."