Rutgers Professors' Union Considers Going On Strike

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — For the first time in Rutgers' history, its professors may go on strike.

On Monday, the two largest faculty unions at Rutgers University began a vote process that will decide whether or not to authorize a strike if they fail to come to new contract agreements with administration.

The voting is a process that will last until March 10. The ballots just started being mailed out Monday, and have to be mailed to thousands of faculty members.

The Rutgers faculty union will announce at midday March 10 if they will go on strike.

Those two unions represent some 8,000 full-time and adjunct faculty, graduate workers, PhD students (who often teach classes) and others at all three Rutgers campuses: New Brunswick main campus, plus Newark and Camden. Professors held a rally at midday Tuesday on the Newark campus, where the Rutgers Board of Governors was supposed be meeting, but the meeting was canceled due to the snow.

The ballot question asks those 8,000 professors if they will agree to go on strike if Rutgers administration does not give them new contracts this spring. Rutgers faculty say their contracts expired last summer, eight months ago.

“No one wants to go on strike. We want to be in the classroom with our students. But the administration is forcing us into taking action ... If they want to avoid a strike, they need to take bargaining seriously," said Rutgers AAUP-AFT President Rebecca Givan. "We’re still waiting for a response on some proposals we put on the table last spring. The people who run Rutgers are making it crystal clear that they’ll drag things out as long as possible."

"(We're) ready to go on strike if that’s what’s necessary to get the administration’s attention," she said.

According to Givan, what the professors are asking for is:

• A 20 percent pay raise over four years for unionized faculty, plus additional raises if inflation remains above 5 percent.
• Wages increased for Rutgers' part-time lecturers. Right now, the union says they are "shamefully low."
• A salary increase for graduate workers in Rutgers AAUP-AFT. A graduate teacher at Princeton, for example, is paid about $45,000, the union said. At Rutgers, it's $30,000. The union has this chart that compares grad teacher salaries at various American universities: https://drive.google.com/file/...

You can see exactly what Rutgers professors are asking for here: https://rutgersaaup.org/bargai...

And as they have done before, the professors also criticized Rutgers for how much the school spends on athletics, particularly its Big 10 football program.

“Something needs to change,” said Amy Higer, president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union. “Athletic coaches get multiyear contracts and multimillion-dollar salaries. Adjunct faculty, who teach over 30 percent of Rutgers undergraduate courses, have to reapply for their jobs every semester and earn less than $6,000 per course."

Here are photos from a prior protest the faculty held in December on this topic: https://patch.com/new-jersey/n...