Takeaway: 1) If you haven’t already, send a message to the State Senate President and Assembly Speaker asking them to support legislation to fix the fringe rate and make sure it comes to a final vote in the Senate and State Assembly next week!
Dear colleague,
Assembly Bill 4164—legislation our unions helped shape that would permanently fix the inflated fringe benefit rate that is harming research at Rutgers—passed unanimously yesterday in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, with all eleven committee members voting in favor (seven Democrats and four Republicans). We were there to testify in favor, and many of you went on record in favor by registering your support online. Thank you! (To learn more about our fringe fund fight, read this previous message to members.)
The bill now goes to the floor of the General Assembly, where all eighty members will vote on approving it. The next possible voting session for the Assembly is Tuesday, June 27.
On the state Senate side, an identical bill (S2747) came out of the Senate Higher Education Committee a year ago, also with a unanimous vote thanks to our testimony. It must now be heard in the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee before it’s scheduled for a final floor vote by all forty members of the Senate. We’re hopeful that votes in both houses will happen next week, but we’re also working hard to make that happen.
Thank you to those who testified yesterday, to the others who made it to Trenton, and to the hundreds of you who took a moment to register “in favor” of the bill. All of this activism makes a difference.
But we aren’t done yet! If you haven’t already, please click here to send letters to Senate President Nicholas Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin asking them to make sure final votes take place next week. We need to keep up the pressure to fix this fringe rate crisis for good!
In solidarity,
Rutgers AAUP-AFT and AAUP-BHSNJ
Rutgers AAUP-AFT Facebook page: https://facebook.com/RUaaup/
Follow us on Twitter @ruaaup and Instagram @rutgersaaup
Freedom School YouTubeChannel: https://rutgersaaup.org/YouTube
AAUP-BHSNJ website: https://onerutgersfaculty.org/
AAUP-BHSNJ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RUaaupbhsnj