Rutgers Faculty May Merge Unions; Their Contracts Expire June 30

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — For the first time in the university's history, Rutgers professors across all three campuses — New Brunswick, Newark and Camden — are attempting to unite under one contract.

This comes at the same time the contracts of many Rutgers professors and faculty expire on June 30 of this year, said Alan Maass, a spokesman for the Rutgers faculty union.

Contract negotiations loom on the horizon this spring, he said, and the goal of the union is to negotiate a single contract for all faculty. Uniting statewide makes their negotiating and collective bargaining power stronger.

"We will ask Rutgers to voluntarily recognize all of us in a single bargaining unit, or we may go to a state agency to ask them to certify the merged bargaining unit," he said.

The "One Faculty" campaign will also include professors from Rutgers medical school.

In the past year, Rutgers professors have been critical of how much the university spends on its football program and other athletics, and also say they not been given raises while the workload has increased.

"Together, we represent close to 10,000 educators on Rutgers’ Camden, Newark and New Brunswick campuses, as well as at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences units across New Jersey," said the union in a statement. "We are all dedicated to the Rutgers mission of teaching, research and service. But that dedication has been repaid with job cuts, increased workloads without support, ever-larger class sizes, increasing precarity, canceled raises and disrespect."

This new union merges the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates and counselors; the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union (PTLFC-AAUP-AFT), which represents part-time lecturers; and AAUP-BHSNJ, which represents biomedical and health sciences faculty.

"After the sacrifices that were made during the pandemic, including the attempted permanent cancellation of raises in our current contract, there is a lot of discussion about staff, grad workers and faculty organizing to meet their needs and also for a university that better serves our students," said Maass.

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