By GREGORY N. HEIRES

DC 37 will join community activists at a rally on March 10 to call for full funding and a fair contract for union members at the City University of New York. Please sign up TODAY for this important event.

Protesters will gather at 5 p.m. outside Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Manhattan Office at 633 Third Ave. between 40th and 41st streets. Demonstrators will march from the governor’s office to the nearby Community Church of New York (40 East 35th St.), where the CUNY crisis and future action will be discussed.

The rally is sponsored by the CUNY Rising Alliance, a coalition of community groups, civil rights organizations and non-profits.

Currently, DC 37 is pressing the New York State Legislature to reject a $485 million cut in CUNY funding under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed executive budget.

If approved, the plan would shift the responsibility for $485 million in CUNY funding to the city.The proposed state budget also calls for transferring $476 million in health-care assistance to the city, a move opposed by the union. Altogether, this cost shifting would impose $1 billion in new spending on the city.

The rally signals an escalation of DC 37’s campaign to pressure the CUNY administration and Cuomo to get contract discussions back on track and reach a settlment. Some 10,000 DC 37 members who work at CUNY have not had a raise in seven years, and the administration has only made a paltry wage offer.

To join DC 37’s contract campaign go to CUNYcontractnow.org. There, you can sign an online petition to the governor, demanding that he stop starving CUNY.