Rutgers Faculty on Strike
The Rutgers AAUP-AFT, the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, and AAUP-BHSNJ are organizing together to win fair contracts, in solidarity with other unions—representing more than 15,000 Rutgers workers in all—whose previous contracts expired last summer.
The group’s goal is to achieve “a better Rutgers for everyone: our students and their families, staff, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, clinicians, full-time and adjunct faculty, and communities surrounding our campuses.”
The three unions representing educators, researchers, and clinicians at Rutgers have a common set of demands and a single contract. Currently, Rutgers AAUP-AFT (American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers) represents more than 5,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and Educational Opportunity Fund counselors. The Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union (PTLFC-AAUP-AFT) represents some 2,700 Part-Time Lecturers. AAUP-BHSNJ (American Association of University Professors–Biomedical and Health Sciences of New Jersey) represents 1,300 health science faculty in RBHS facilities and schools.
They seek:
- Equal pay for equal work for adjunct faculty
- Guaranteed funding and a living wage for graduate workers
- A fair salary increase that keeps up with inflation
- Job security for all faculty
- One union for all Rutgers educators, clinicians, and researchers
- Affordable housing for students, members, and our communities
- Forgiveness for students’ overdue fees and fines
- Control over course scheduling and teaching and research conditions
- Affordable health insurance for all
- Equity for Rutgers-Camden and Rutgers-Newark
- Workload standards for medical clinical faculty
Governor Phil Murphy yesterday reached out a hand to serve as an intermediator between the bargaining committees:
“Rutgers University is one of the nation’s premier institutions of higher learning. I am calling the University and union bargaining committees to meet in my office tomorrow to have a productive dialogue.”
“The unions and university representatives have been negotiating since the prior contracts expired last summer, the unions’ release said. But while both sides acknowledged some progress in recent days, union leadership said Sunday that their essential demands were still far from being met.
“Rutgers AAUP-AFT and AAUP-BHSNJ have united their bargaining efforts and are jointly negotiating a single contract for all full-time university faculty, while the Adjunct Faculty Union is independently negotiating a new contract for part-time lecturers who must be reappointed to their teaching positions after a set number of semesters or years.”
InsiderNJ reporters will be in the field all day covering the strike. Please check in throughout the day for updates.
For more, please go here and here.
This strike is for the Unions listed, but do not include the staff unions or the unaligned staff. Including “staff” in this group is misleading and incorrect.
The challenges our education systems are face with today is an issue of “national security!” In addition to “student debt” our nation must make education as a national emergency! Our nation spend trillion of dollars on warfare and dollar diplomacy; let put America’s needs “first!”🇺🇸