By Tina Kelley and Brent Johnson for NJ.com
Officials have reached a tentative deal that will halt the first faculty strike in Rutgers University history, at least temporarily, and allow classes to resume after five days of picketing, lengthy negotiations, disrupted schedules, and uncertainty about exams and graduation.
The school and faculty unions that have been striking since Monday agreed to a “framework” of new contracts that would provide better pay, benefits, and job security for full- and part-time faculty, Gov. Phil Murphy announced just before 1 a.m. Saturday.
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That, officials said, means all classes at Rutgers’ three main campuses will resume Monday, two weeks before the end of the spring semester for the 67,000 students at New Jersey’s largest university.
Union leaders, however, characterized this not as a formal end to the strike — one of the largest in the history of higher education — but a suspension of it. They stressed there is still work to be done to finalize the contracts, including “core” issues involving medical faculty at the state university, and members must then vote on the agreement.
