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Rutgers could face first faculty strike in its history — key union vote Tuesday
By
Karen Yi
Published Feb 23, 2023
Modified Feb 28, 2023
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By
Karen Yi
Published Feb 23, 2023
Modified Feb 28, 2023
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The unions representing Rutgers University’s 8,000-member faculty will vote next week whether to authorize their leaders to call a strike after going without a contract for eight months — setting the groundwork for what organizers say would be the first strike by teaching staff in the school’s 256-year history.
The Rutgers AAUP-AFT and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union will open online voting for their members on Tuesday morning, and schedule solidarity rallies at each of the university’s campuses in New Brunswick, Camden and Newark.
The voting will run for a week-and-a-half, and a strike will only be called if an overwhelming majority of the members agree to it, organizers said. A strike wouldn’t automatically be triggered by the vote, the unions said in a letter to members. Instead, their leaders would instead have the option of calling a strike in March or April, if they still haven’t struck a contract deal with the university.
“All of us would rather be teaching. None of us want to go out on strike,” said Rebecca Givan, the president of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT and an associate professor in the School of Management. The Rutgers AAUP-AFT represents about 5,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates and Educational Opportunity Fund counselors. The adjunct union represents another 2,700 part-time lecturers.
The strike authorization vote will begin the same day that Rutgers’ Board of Governors will meet in Newark at noon. Givan said the sister unions have been negotiating with university leadership since May, asking for increased pay, better job security and health benefits for part-time lecturers and graduate assistants. They’re also asking Rutgers to freeze rents on housing for students and staff, and extend graduate research funding for one year for students who were impacted by the pandemic.
“Our members really want to support the most vulnerable among us and they understand that those of us with more advantages need to step up and fight for those who don’t have those resources,” Givan said.
Both union contracts expired in June.
Rutgers spokesperson Dory Devlin said the university remained in negotiations "for new contracts that are fair, reasonable, and responsible."
"We will continue to negotiate in good faith with Rutgers' unions," she said. "All mandatorily negotiable issues related to those employee contracts will be discussed at the negotiating table with the appropriate bargaining team representatives from the administration and the unions."
She said the university had already held more than 100 bargaining sessions with its unions, and hoped to come to agreements "as quickly as possible."
Givan said even if a strike is authorized, a walkout could be averted if the university agrees to settle the contract.
In 2019, Rutgers AAUP-AFT members also authorized their leadership to call a strike, but one was averted when the union reached a last-minute deal with the university.
Amy Higer, a part-time lecturer in the political science department in New Brunswick and president of the Adjunct Faculty Union, said even though she’s been at Rutgers since the 1990s, she still has to reapply for her job every semester. Higer said that’s why the union is calling for multiyear contracts for long-serving staff.
“There’s an old saying, teachers’ working conditions are our students’ learning conditions,” Higer said. “I'm always being asked, ‘What are you teaching next semester?’ And I have to say, ‘I don't know.’ I don't even know if I'll be here next semester. I mean, that's terrible for a student.”
Should teaching staff decide to strike, the move could virtually shut down New Jersey’s flagship university, which serves nearly 70,000 students.
This story was updated to clarify Amy Higer’s title, to add a statement from Rutgers spokesperson Dory Devlin and to correct Rutgers University's age.
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Workforce
Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
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