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Striking Rutgers faculty report 'incredible gains' for adjuncts' raises, but not job security
By
Louis C. Hochman
Published Apr 14, 2023
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Photo by Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
By
Louis C. Hochman
Published Apr 14, 2023
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Unions representing Rutgers University’s striking faculty members say they’ve made “incredible gains” as they negotiate raises for part-time faculty workers.
But they caution there’s still serious work ahead before the unions serving 9,000 professors, adjuncts, graduate workers and other faculty end a walkout that’s entering its fifth day on Friday, shutting down classes across the school’s three campuses in New Brunswick, Newark and Camden.
“It’s been a long year this week,” Amy Higer, president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, told members Thursday evening. The three striking unions have been holding Zoom calls with members each night at 8 p.m. — brief breaks from marathon negotiation sessions at the Statehouse since Gov. Phil Murphy called both sides to Trenton on Monday to work with mediators.
The unions’ core demands include more pay and job security for adjunct faculty members, who get paid considerably less than their full-time peers for each class taught, and who must reapply for their jobs each semester.
“On our financial demands, we’ve already made incredible gains. We’re not finished,” Bryan Sacks, a philosophy professor and lead bargainer for part-time lecturers, said on the call. “On our job security demands, we’re short of where we want to be.”
The union leaders didn’t discuss specific financial proposals, but the unions have previously said they want to boost the pay for a part-time lecturer teaching a three-credit course to $10,000 — up from what the unions have said is an average of $6,500. At the current average, a part-time lecturer teaching seven classes a year would earn $$45,500.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average professor at Rutgers made about $161,000 in 2021. The average assistant professor made about $84,000 and the average associate professor made $106,000. Faculty members classified as lecturers made an average of $65,000 and instructors made $61,000.
The unions have estimated boosting part-time lecturer pay to $10,000 per class would cost Rutgers $20 million. They say part-timers teach about 30% of classes.
Sacks said the negotiations about better job security for part-time lecturers, “has not translated into black and white counters of the sort that we expected.”
Multiple members of the unions’ bargaining committee said they regretted a “straw-poll” vote to accept a proposal for increasing graduate student pay, currently at $30,000 per year. Several said they misunderstood some of the terms proposed and agreed an immediate increase to $33,000 wasn’t enough. The unions have previously stated a goal of increasing graduate student pay to $37,000.
“I think we’re reckoning with that as we move forward,” said Todd Wolfson, a journalism professor and general vice president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents 5,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates and counselors.
Art history Professor Maria Garth, also part of the bargaining team, said the unions “cautiously” believe they’re making progress toward a goal of defining fellows’ roles so they’re entitled to the same protection as teaching assistants and graduate assistants.
And Carla A. Katz, vice president for non-tenure-track faculty in the AAUP-AFT, also said negotiators had “extraordinary success” securing more job security for those educators. A non-tenure-track faculty member’s fifth appointment to teach would be through a “presumptively renewable” five-year contract — a standard Katz described as “extremely close to tenure.”
Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway described a series of proposed salary increases for faculty last week — but any figures described at the time predated this week’s negotiations.
Union members have pledged to continue protests and picketing on Rutgers’ three campuses — serving about 67,000 students — every day this week until a deal is reached. Thursday, picketers also appeared outside the New York City home of Rutgers University Board of Governors Vice Chairman Mark A. Angelson.
Picketers have also demonstrated outside the bargaining sessions in Trenton. On Rutgers campuses, they’ve been joined by hundreds of student supporters.
Rutgers administrators still haven’t said what provisions might be made for students — including those slated to graduate in just a few weeks — to complete their semester. In FAQs on the school’s website, students are advised to continue their coursework and to contact their instructors about how to handle assignments.
University administrators maintain a public worker strike is illegal, citing court cases that describe it as violating common law. Union leaders dispute that, because no state statute outlaws public worker strikes.
Holloway said Monday he agreed, at Murphy’s urging, to put aside any plans to seek an injunction so long as progress was still being made in talks. But Wednesday night, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union secretary Howie Swerdloff said he expected “we’ll be facing some kind of legal challenge shortly” if a deal wasn’t reached soon. As of Thursday night, Rutgers hadn’t filed for an injunction with state courts.
On Thursday, Rutgers officials posted an update to the school’s website saying negotiations had gone until 1 a.m. that morning, and would resume “with the continued help, engagement and leadership of the governor and his senior staff.”
“We will keep working until we have fair contracts for all of our employees,” the notice said.
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Louis C. Hochman
After about two decades in (mostly) New Jersey-focused commercial print, digital and digital-but-radio-adjacent news, Lou stumbled into member-supported news in early 2021, as the editor and CEO of Montclair Local. There, he (hopes he) expanded enterprise, brought more sophistication to digital storytelling and moved the nonprofit newsroom closer to long-term financial sustainability. He helped lead the Local to its fourth consecutive General Excellence award from the New Jersey Press Association — the NJPA's highest honor with judges noting the paper's work to strip away layers of government opacity, to hold power to account, to make news accessible for more members of the community, to share the stories and concerns of more facets of the community and to tell compelling stories across multiple media. He's excited to continue the same ethic — news as a public service — at NYPR as the New Jersey and suburbs editor, drawing on the extraordinary talents of reporters including Karen Yi and Nancy Solomon. Lou lives in Philly (that commute!) with his partner and their two cats, about whom and about which he speaks incessantly.
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