Dear colleague,
Yesterday marked a meaningful and victorious end to the lawsuit against our three faculty locals (Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, and AAUP-BHSNJ), our state federation (AFTNJ), and national union (AFT), over the 2023 Rutgers faculty strike. The lawsuit, filed in March 2024 by former Rutgers student Jeremy Li, was dismissed with prejudice, with the court upholding the rights of public sector unions and their members to engage in free speech and collective action.
This ruling is a bright spot in a difficult year, affirming the critically important right of public higher education workers to take collective action in order to win stronger and better contracts through collective bargaining.
Li is one of several students who have been recruited through coordinated anti-union litigation efforts to file lawsuits across the country in an attempt to curtail the right of collective bargaining units to strike. Li’s attorneys, Patrick Hugues and Daniel Suhr, have filed similar lawsuits against teachers’ unions in Massachusetts and Kentucky seeking financial and emotional damages allegedly stemming from labor strikes–and they have lost each one.
Our students’ learning conditions can only be as good as the working conditions of the faculty and staff who support their education. Our fight is not only for ourselves, but for our students too. This ruling affirms our longstanding position that we are fighting for all of Rutgers—and we have the right to do so.
This decision could not have come at a more critical time. Yesterday, the historic contract that we won following the 2023 strike expired. We do not yet know what this current contract campaign will bring, but we do know that the rights of public higher education workers to engage in effective collective bargaining must be protected, so that we can continue to fight for the future of this University.
In solidarity,
HP, Cathy, and Becky
Heather Pierce, President, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union
Dr. Catherine Monteleone, President, AAUP-BHSNJ
Rebecca Givan, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT