Dear colleague,
One of the most important demands of our 2023 contract campaign and strike was to raise the pay and status of graduate workers when they are classified as fellows. We are therefore glad to report that EVPAA Prabas Moghe announced late last year in a memo to Graduate Program Directors (GPDs) that, starting next fall, grads fellows must be paid a minimum stipend/salary of $30,833 for AY appointments and $37,000 for CY appointments. That’s still well short of the salary for grad workers when they have TA and GA appointments—and also of a living wage. But it’s a 20 percent increase over the current median salary for fellows.
This will be the first time that Rutgers requires a minimum salary for grads when they are fellows—and it happened because we fought for it! As a result of our contract campaign, the administration agreed to a joint Fellows Task Force to study conditions for fellows. That Task Force met and—thanks to our members’ organizing and especially to Mary Pat Reiter and Ravi Mill, who served on the Task Force—came to the obvious conclusion that grad fellows are severely underpaid, which harms the university’s academic mission. EVPAA Moghe cited the Task Force’s recommendations in announcing the new minimum salary.
As you may remember from previous messages, the university can get away with underpaying fellows because they classify grad workers on fellowships as students rather than employees—despite the fact that grads generate value for the university as fellows, and they do similar work to grad workers when they have TA and GA appointments and are classified as employees. This arbitrary distinction is also the excuse for excluding fellows from the state health insurance program that others represented by AAUP-AFT and BHSNJ—including grads when they have TA and GA appointments—have access to, and for barring our union from officially representing grads when they are fellows.
Moghe’s memo repeats the fiction that grads classified as fellows are students and can’t be paid and treated the same as other grad workers. We will continue to fight this unjust misclassification. In particular, grad fellows must immediately get access to the state health insurance plan. Adjunct faculty are also excluded—so our unions are uniting to win access to health insurance for all educators and researchers at Rutgers.
We can also expect the administration to try to evade any responsibility for paying the increased minimum salaries. Our Grad Fellows Organizing Committee is planning a listening/strategy session for GPDs on February 21 at 12 p.m. (click here to tell us you’re coming). We need to discuss what GPDs and their colleagues at all ranks can do to demand central funding of the increases, so the money doesn’t come out of already tight department budgets.
As we’ve learned these past two years, the more we win in our contracts, the more organizing work we have to do to make sure the administration honors their commitments and takes responsibility for centrally funding increased salaries. If you’d like to get involved in the Grad Fellows Organizing Committee, you can sign up at the committee’s linktree. To get involved with your union more generally, click here and fill out this form.
We have more work ahead of us to win equity and a living wage for all grad workers, regardless of what their appointment is called. But it’s important to recognize when we’ve taken a step forward—especially at a moment when the Trump administration is attacking higher ed relentlessly on the national level. We want to thank everyone who organized to win better pay for all grad workers!
In solidarity,
Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, and AAUP-BHSNJ
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Visit our website: https://rutgers-ptlfc.org/
AAUP-BHSNJ website: https://aaupbhsnj.org/
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