Members to Mark “Strike-iversary” by Speaking Out Against Cuts and Contract Violations
ADVISORY
Strike-iversary Speakout and March to Defend Our University
Wednesday, April 17, 1:30 p.m., Voorhees Mall (behind Scott Hall, 43 College Ave., New Brunswick)
The “Strike-iversary” event will start with music and speakers on Voorhees Mall on the College Avenue campus—site of the large strike rallies last spring—and close with a march to the top administration’s offices in Winants Hall (7 College Ave.), where professors from the Writing Program will deliver a petition protesting the cuts (click here for the text of the petition). The Writing Program educators plan to walk out together at 1:15 p.m. from Murray Hall (510 George St.) to join the speakout.
“Our strike last spring won important victories, especially for the lowest-paid educators and researchers, thanks to our members’ determination,” said Todd Wolfson, president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents some 6,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and counselors.
“But the administration has spent the months since then trying to undermine our contracts,” Wolfson said. “They blame an operating deficit last year on our unions raising adjunct faculty and grad workers closer to a living wage—even though they’re sitting on nearly $1 billion in unrestricted financial reserves. But this is their excuse for demanding budget cuts, reducing course offerings, and increasing class sizes.”
The Writing Program cuts have become a lightning rod for members’ anger, Wolfson said. Schools and departments throughout the university rely on the program to teach essential writing and research skills to undergraduates. Yet the administration plans to sharply reduce the number of Writing Program classes offered this coming fall and increase class sizes to 24—a decision that defies widely accepted best practices for writing courses, which depend on intensive interaction between students and instructors.
Last week, the unions learned that only two of 31 Writing Program adjuncts had been offered classes for next fall—a hard blow for educators whose livelihoods depend on courses they’ve taught for years at Rutgers, said Howie Swerdloff, secretary of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and a lecturer in the Writing Program.
“After 13 years, I’ve been told these will be my last two weeks in the Writing Program,” Swerdloff said. “One of my colleagues who has taught at Rutgers for 44 years is also being fired. With other long-standing lecturers, we’ve taught generations of undergrads how to read and think critically, research rigorously, and argue effectively. It’s the height of irresponsibility to throw away our collective expertise in the interest of what the administration calls ‘instructional efficiency.’ It’s hard for me to believe that these layoffs are not connected to—or even a reprisal for—last spring’s strike, when we finally won a living wage.”
Julie Flynn, an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Writing Program, said, “This attack on writing shows that the administration doesn’t understand and doesn’t value Rutgers’ mission to educate the future leaders of New Jersey and our country at large. By firing dedicated, expert instructors, Holloway and his administration are decreasing the efficiency of instruction by asking those of us who remain to do more work than we are physically capable of doing—and certainly more work than any professional organization dedicated to writing pedagogy would support. Students will be shortchanged by this decision, and they should not stand for it.”
This isn’t the only example of “cruel and unnecessary austerity measures at our university,” the unions wrote in a message to members last week. “Class size caps have been increased from 25 to 35 in African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literature in SAS-New Brunswick—another gross violation of effective pedagogy. In the Graduate School of Education, adjunct lecturers have had their course loads cut to two from three, while class sizes have increased by 50 percent. In other words, adjuncts are being forced to teach the same number of students at two-thirds the pay!”
In Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, the university is decreasing the time medical faculty can spend with patients and taking other steps to boost workload. “They’re so concerned with faculty producing clinical revenue that they’ve lost sight of our commitment to our students and patients,” said Dr. Catherine Moneteleone, president of AAUP-BHSNJ, which represents some 1,100 biomedical faculty members.
Last spring’s strike, the first-ever in Rutgers’ 257-year history, came after a year of administration delays in bargaining. In a matter of five days, the administration agreed to a slew of union proposals they had previously rejected, including major pay increases for adjunct lecturers and graduate workers.
Officials from Gov. Phil Murphy’s office participated in negotiations and paved the way for an agreement on salaries with a promise to increase funding for Rutgers to help pay for the contracts. The state budget passed at the end of June included an extra $25.5 million proposed after the strike and ratification of a new contract.
But the unions have had to organize throughout this academic year against attempts by the administration to undermine the contracts—including explicit violations of the agreements Rutgers signed last spring, said Bryan Sacks, president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, which represents 2,800 adjunct lecturers.
“As soon as the ink was dry on our new contracts, Rutgers chancellors and deans began to innovate ways to undermine our gains,” Sacks said. “First, hundreds of adjuncts were threatened with non-payment of large retroactive salaries due to them. Then, orders came down to cut instructional costs across dozens of departments. Now, the plan is to gut writing instruction at Rutgers and lay off virtually all lecturers who teach there.”
“These cuts are not only unnecessary and cruel,” Sacks continued. “They come, as do the cuts other lecturers are facing, at the precise moment when hundreds of us were slated to have longer-term contracts kick in for the first time. This plan amounts to the administration punishing students and faculty for the success of our strike last year.”
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