By: David Hutter
March 21, 2019 7:48 am

David Hughes, vice president of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT faculty union and a professor of anthropology, said the labor union members voted to authorize a strike Monday after more than a year of contract negotiations.

“It is not that surprising because we have been going at this for a year,” Hughes said. “We have not made progress on equal pay for equal work. We want raises for our lowest paid instructors who are earning $5,200 per course. That is appalling. They have no job security. We are asking for more money.”

The labor union represents 4,800 people and more than 2,400 voted. Eighty-eight percent of those roughly 2,400 members voted to strike, Hughes said.

“We are going to make a determination on striking soon,” Hughes said. “I hope the administration will read our stances as serious. However, there is still distance on many points. The administration will not even talk to us about hiring more teaching assistants.”

“We have been bargaining for over a year now and while the threat of a strike is having an impact on the Barchi administration, we still have unresolved issues,” Deepa Kumar, President of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, said in a statement to NJBIZ. “We just won $20 million for diversity hiring, but we need to also win equal pay for equal work for women faculty, fair wage increases for our least paid members particularly our grad employees, and a higher faculty to student ratio to improve the quality of education. This strike, if we strike, is about defending quality public education.”

Read the full story

Like this? Click to receive free updates