Bargaining Update #10 – June 9, 2026

TL;DR 

Our unified bargaining team met with management in Winants Hall on June 9 to discuss the following proposals: our Compensation articles proposing 6% annual salary increases for all units (Article 8A and Article 8B); Conditions of Employment for librarians(Article 22A); School of Public Health Workload; and Fringe Benefits for BHSNHJ faculty (Article 28B). We also countered management’s responses to the following critical articles: Academic Freedom (Article 2) and Grievance Procedure (Article 9).

Highlights of the Session

Compensation (Articles 8A and 8B)

The first two articles we discussed were the compensation package articles. Article 8A deals with the compensation for Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union members, while Article 8B applies to AAUP-BHSNJ members. 

Rebecca Givan, Rutgers AAUP-AFT president, outlined the key points for Article 8A: 

  • We are proposing a 6% raise every year of the contract, with the first year being a flat-dollar across-the-board increase based on 6% of the total payroll for our units (the “salary pool”). A flat-dollar increase means the lowest-paid members would receive more than 6%, an important union objective. This will be followed by percentage increases of 6% in the remaining three years of the contract. 
  • Another major part of the proposal was eliminating the “merit year” currently in the article, due to the issues merit pay has historically engendered. Distribution of funds often causes division within departments due to the small pool of money each receives and the difficulty of distributing it fairly.  
  • Tuition remission – The union proposed 100% tuition remission for fractional NTTs and their dependents. (Read more about our proposal to convert lecturers to fractional NTTs here).  Lecturers currently have very limited rights to this benefit.
  • The unions are moving the pay equity program into a separate article.
  • Health benefits will be negotiated at the Coalition of Rutgers Unions (CRU) bargaining table. Stay tuned for further updates. 

Diomedes Tsitouras, executive director of AAUP-BHSNJ, walked management through Article 8B:

  • Similar to the Rutgers AAUP-AFT Article 8A, the BHSNJ compensation article also proposes a flat 6% across the board the first year and  percentage raises of 6% in every subsequent year of the contract. 
  • The unions want to ensure clinicians are fairly compensated and feel valued. This is necessary to retain our highly capable colleagues, who are in demand in the market. The current tide of clinician turnover has strained faculty and hurt students. 
  • RWJMS Clinicians currently do not get a raise on their full salary. The proposal seeks to correct that.
  • Various other reforms were also proposed at NJMS concerning transparency

Management asked clarifying questions, but otherwise, there was no substantial response. 

Conditions of Employment (Article 22A)

The changes we proposed to this article are intended to address the current onerous and oppressive procedures required for librarians to use their unused vacation time.  Librarians are academic-year faculty and receive 22 days of vacation per fiscal year. They do not receive sick time or other personal days; everything else is “closed ranks,” which means it is essential to protect their vacation time. 

Librarians must request by June 30 that up to 1 year of unused vacation time be rolled over to the next year. If they forget to send the email, they lose those days. 

This contract change would make the rollover automatic and less burdensome for both library faculty and administrators. Everyone wants to roll over their unused vacation time. Losing it because someone forgot to send an email is demeaning. 

Fringe Benefits (Article 28B)

We proposed improvements to Article 28B, which covers vacation days, sick days, and tuition remission for BHSNJ faculty. 

  • We proposed extending the tuition remission benefit to all faculty at 0.5 FTE and above. Right now, faculty at 1.0 FTE get full tuition remission for their children to attend Rutgers. This is a really valuable benefit that is crucial to recruiting and retaining faculty. However, BHSNJ faculty at lower FTEs have not had access to this benefit. Faculty between 0.5 and 1.0 FTE contribute a huge amount to this university — and indeed, many faculty at 0.8, 0.7, or even 0.5 FTE in fact work more than full-time. So, we proposed extending this benefit to more of our colleagues. 
  • We clarified that faculty may use sick days for any reason covered by the New Jersey Earned Sick Leave law, including pre-scheduled doctor’s appointments or caring for sick relatives. (Faculty should already have this right, but there have been issues in a few departments, so we want to make sure there is no ambiguity.) 
  • We clarified that faculty should not need to “find coverage” when they take a day off; “finding coverage” should be management’s responsibility. We want to ensure that faculty are fully free to use their days off.

School of Public Health Workload Article

The purpose of the article is to establish research, teaching, and service workload expectations and standards. This article provides a clearer definition of the value of SPH faculty members’ work as measured in “workload credits,” enabling them to be better protected under the contract.  The article was presented without any real discussion from management.

RICAP Side Letter 

This side letter memorializes the funding and support Rutgers has provided to the Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project (RICAP) to ensure it continues its excellent work. Becky Givan emphasized how important the clinic has been to members of our community, particularly during the arbitrary visa revocations of Spring 2025, how it provided emergency support to many international students, including our members. The presentation of this article did not elicit any questions or responses. 

Union Counter on Academic Freedom (Article 2) 

Bryan Sacks, lead negotiator for the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, presented the unions’ counter to management’s response of 5/19. A major purpose of this article is to get academic freedom concretized in contract language. It currently resides in a university policy that management can change at will. We are also insisting that BHSNJ be covered by this article, like every other member of our bargaining units. Bryan made it clear that this contract article is essential for our members to feel secure.

Union Counter on the Grievance Article (Article 9)

Our lawyer, Steve Weissman, presented the unions’ counter to management’s 5/21 response. He focused on areas where there is still disagreement, largely focusing on procedural issues, with the goal of increasing the speed of the grievance procedure. 

Next steps: 

We will await management’s counter proposals in the upcoming days. Our contract expires in eighteen days. 

Mark your calendar!

Our next scheduled session is on Tuesday, June 16, from 10AM-2PM.

Other Upcoming Events

Click here for a full calendar

Our Bargaining Team

AustinRooneyCamdenPhilosophy & Religion
BethAdubatoNewarkSchool of Criminal Justice
BryanSacksCamdenPhilosophy & Religion
DavidLetwinCollege Ave-NBRutgers Arts Online
HowieSwerdloffCook-NBLabor Studies & Employee Relations
BorisPaskhoverNewarkOtolaryngology (NJMS)
CatherineMonteleoneRWJMS-NBMedicine
ClaireO’ConnellBusch-NbSchool Of Health Professions
CynthiaSuttonRSDM-NewarkRSDM Diagnostic
JeffLevineCollege Ave-NBFamily Medicine (RWJ)
JoshBucherCollege Ave-NBEmergency Medicine (RWJ)
KathleenBeebeNewarkOrthopaedics (NJMS)
MelissaRogersNewarkMicrobiology (NJMS)
PankajAgarwallaNewarkNeurosurgery (NJMS)
RulaBtoushNewarkSchool of Nursing
StephanSchwanderNB PiscatawaySPH
TessaBergsbakenNewarkImmunity & Inflammation (NJMS)
LaToyaGibbonsCamdenEnrollment & Student Success
MiguelRodriguezCollege Ave-NBSchool of Arts and Sciences
AdrianLiuCollege Ave-NBPhilosophy
AlexanderSteinerRCIRadiation Oncology
AnnikaBarberBusch-NBMicrobiology
BeckyGivanCook-NBLabor Studies & Employee Relations
BrittParisCollege Ave-NBLibrary & Information Science
BryanOllerNewarkPhysics
CarlosDecenaLivingston-NBLatino & Hispanic Caribbean St
ChideraNtiwunka-IfeanyiBusch-NBBiomedical Engineering
EmilyMarkerCamdenHistory
IanOilerNewarkInstitute for Quantitative Biomedicine/Earth
and Environmental Sciences
KathyLopezCamdenPublic Policy
KyleRiismandelNewarkHistory
LeeCarpenterCamdenLaw School
LilyTodorinovaDouglass-NBNew Brunswick Library
PaulO’KeefeLivingston-NBGeography
SeasonQiuNewarkMolecular And Behavioral Neuroscience
TaraMatiseBusch-NBGenetics
HeatherPierceCollege Ave-NBPolitical Science
LuisSotoLivingston-NBCriminal Justice