Celebrating 50 Years of CSA
Half Century of Unionism
CSA officially turns 50 on Jan. 30, 2012. To commemorate this occasion, the union will hold a number of special events culminating in a gala dinner/dance April 27 at the Waldorf Astoria. Each month, the CSA News will highlight a milestone in the union’s history. We begin this series, well, at the beginning: a meeting that resulted in the concept of a unified voice for NYC school supervisors. This information is taken from an article by the late Howard L. Hurwitz that ran in the very first issue of what would become the CSA News, printed in February 1964.
On January 30, 1962, the CSA came together as a federation of supervisory groups. Initially, 11 groups agreed to come together during a meeting at Manhattan’s High School of Art and Design. The seeds for the concept of a union are planted in 1960 when salary committees from these 11 supervisory groups agree to fight together for a salary index. Prior to that time, the groups met with the Schools Superintendent individually and had very little power to negotiate anything.
Many of the founders of CSA had been members of the fledgling UFT. Since the UFT was not interested in including supervisors in its ranks, these former teachers - now Assistant Principals and Principals - saw the advantages of a union and felt that unity among supervisors was “imperative if our interests and the broader goals of school improvement were to be served.”
A “long-smouldering” salary controversy was the basis for much of the resentment. Supervisors wanted a salary that was higher than the teachers whom they supervised. They also wanted a salary schedule that reflected the relationship between supervisory levels. In June 1962, CSA helped secure the highest single salary increase received in many years.
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