Rutgers University workers plan to strike Monday after failing over many months to reach a new contract, a historic moment in the school\u2019s nearly 260-year history.
The strike also adds New Jersey to a national wave of walkouts as teachers and staff grow increasingly frustrated with their wages and benefits.
Leaders of three unions representing about 9,000 workers voted to strike Sunday night, and it takes effect Monday morning at all three of Rutgers\u2019 major campuses \u2014 Camden, Newark and New Brunswick.
\u201cWe are not alone,\u201d Todd Wolfson, general vice president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, said in an online meeting after the vote. \u201cThe strikes that are happening right here in New Jersey and in other parts of the country right now are building on a historic strike wave in higher education.\u201d
The strike means instruction and non-critical research to \u201ccome to a halt\u201d and picket lines will instead go up at the campuses, union leaders said. The workers plan to continue not working until a deal is reached.
The potential for a strike has loomed over Rutgers since late last year. University faculty and staff from multiple unions had been working without a contract since summer, and they publicly rallied for higher wages and increased benefits while threatening to strike if the school did not \u201cbargain in good faith.\u201d
In March, with its members still without contracts, unions voted to authorize a strike. Sunday night\u2019s vote took that authorization to the next step as negotiations have stalled.
\u201cWe take this very seriously,\u201d said Rebecca Givan, president of Rutgers\u2019 AAUP-AFT union. \u201cWe have bargained and bargained and bargained and bargained and bargained and we\u2019re not getting anywhere, and we need to do something more.\u201d
The three unions \u2014 AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and AAUP-BHSNJ \u2014 represent about 9,000 full-time faculty, counselors, part-time faculty and others. More than 6,000 other union workers in nine other unions are also seeking new contracts.
Rutgers\u2019 president, Jonathan Holloway, said it\u2019s \u201cdeeply disappointing\u201d to reach this point, especially given the progress the two sides have made recently.
\u201cWe have all been hard at work trying to resolve issues around compensation, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment,\u201d he wrote in a message to the Rutgers community. \u201cFor the past several weeks, negotiations have been constant and continuous. Significant and substantial progress has been made, as I have noted, and I believe that there are only a few outstanding issues. We will, of course, negotiate for as long as it takes to reach agreements and will not engage in personal attacks or misinformation.\u201d
Union leaders said they were negotiating for contracts that included not just higher wages but guarantees such as equal pay for equal work for adjunct faculty, affordable housing and forgiveness for students\u2019 overdue fees and fines. Although the two sides made some progress the last few days, they were \u201cfar apart on many core issues,\u201d Givan said.
The vote to strike comes amid a national wave of college labor action. A combination of factors \u2014 such as declining enrollment, rising costs and the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic \u2014 have propelled a labor movement that reached campuses around the country, including pro-union, Democratic states like New Jersey. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, a strong supporter of unions, had largely stayed out of the public discourse on Rutgers contract disputes but advocated for the two sides to reach an agreement. He took a more direct approach Sunday night.
\u201cRutgers University is one of the nation\u2019s 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,\u201d he said on Twitter.
The strike is historic in another way: It would be the first to involve tenured and tenure-track faculty at a Big Ten university, according to the unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n