Thank you Ray for bringing this to my attention.
I have be privately railing against and wondering about the 9-6 ever since I began as an adjunct at QC in 2012. Back then I assumed that the University liked it because it prevented them from having to pay adjuncts the health care insurance. I never quite understood how the PSC thought this could in any way bring parity.
Now that the university pays for adjunct health care anyway, it would make more economic sense (especially for them) to utilize fully those people for whom they are already shouldering the additional expense, rather than hiring new people.
As for not being exploited, how is the current situation (where adjuncts must--secretly--teach at an additional 2 or 3 non-CUNY campuses to earn a living wage) not the epitome of exploitation?
Adjuncts and the departments that hire them, not CUNY and not the well-intentioned but in this case misdirected PSC, should be free to decide how much of a workload they can handle.
In my personal case, I adjunct at QC in both the English and European Lit Departments. Almost every semester, I have had to give up one class at one or the other department, because accepting it would have put me over the 9 credit limit. As for teaching 9 at QC and finding 4 (I have yet to find one 6 credit class in English or French) elsewhere, I occasionally came close, but never found one to which I could commute and arrive at on time. Working out the schedules has so far proved entirely elusive.
I fully understand that doing away with the 9-6 would probably reduce the number of new hires. And this is indeed an unfortunate consequence. On the other hand, the constant hiring of new adjuncts is what keeps the supply high and the demand low: The artificial maintenance of a high number (one might say " surplus") of adjuncts is what has been keeping adjunct salaries uncompetitive. And I believe therein lies the heart of this issue. In the medium and long term, elimination or modification of the 9-6 rule would most certainly positively affect the issue of adjunct salaries