TL;DR
Our unified bargaining team met with management in Piscataway on June 18 and presented three new proposals and a counter: to improve the “Pay Equity” process; a “Side Letter Regarding Hourly Pay for Doctoral Students” defining minimum pay and maximum hours for grads who need additional funding beyond the five years of guaranteed academic year funding; and a clinician workload article entitled “Providing Excellent Quality Patient Care” to achieve consistency and fairness in work expectations. There was more back-and-forth as we countered again on the Article 9 grievance process. Regarding this latter article, at least, it seems we are making progress. On the other hand, we received a disturbing harbinger of what is to come when management told us they could not accept a merged union with a single contract for all and that they intend to respond to our demands regarding lecturers by using the existing lecturer contract format.
Highlights of the Session
Pay Equity (Article 8C)
Rebecca Givan, president of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, presented necessary updates to the process for determining pay equity adjustments:
- The process currently rests on identifying and agreeing on appropriate comparators, but the expertise lies outside of Compensation Services.
- The union bargaining team argued that the Salary Equity Review Committee (SERC) should have a real role in the process of appealing a pay equity review.
- The unions’ proposal compresses the timeline for salary review, since it is important for members to have a process that completes within one year. If the process takes too long, it prevents members from applying again if they are denied the first time.
Management’s Comments on the Union’s Recognition Proposal (Article 3):
Management signaled they will reject the unions’ proposal for a single contract that incorporates all categories, including lecturers (converting them to fractional NTTs):
- They argued that the unions want a single structure across many categories of employees, and management will not agree to a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Though they “appreciate the commonalities,” management argued that employees are too different and therefore the university will not agree to a single bargaining unit.
- Management stated that their response does not mean that they are unwilling to engage on the concerns, especially because they understand that the unions seek greater job security and predictability for long-time instructors. To make progress, management stated that the discussions must recognize differences. They signaled that they would prefer to consider lecturer proposals separately from the Rutgers AAUP-AFT contract.
- Becky Givan responded that we already have many bargaining unit members with different types of employment covered by the same contract, so there is precedent for including different employee types in the same proposals.
- Bryan Sacks, lead negotiator for the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, stated that the union needs specific written counterproposals to respond to. We presented Article 3 months ago, and our proposal on converting Lecturers to Fractional NTTs weeks ago. In response to the other side’s query if we would accept counters in the form of the previous Lecturer contract articles, Bryan responded: The unions are open to management’s responses so that we can make progress, but we need written counters in order to actually do so.
Hourly Pay for Doctoral Students– Side Letter
- This side letter creates some contractual standards for how graduate students will be paid, providing parameters around minimum pay rates ($40/hour) and maximum hours (10 hours in fall/spring and 14 hours in summer). This side letter is intended to help bring graduate workers closer to a living wage. It matters to our graduate members because they do significant work for the university, yet in this housing and job market, they are underpaid.
- This side letter ensures that any summer work that graduate students take on is proportional to the pay they receive during the regular academic year. This will especially benefit international graduate students who generally cannot work off-campus..
Union Counter – Grievance Procedure (Article 9)
The union’s lawyer, Steve Weissman, outlined our response to management’s counter. We are still focused on improving the timing of the grievance process, especially when the issue involves the denial of a reasonable accommodation, or the denial of a medical, family, or parental leave.
Providing Excellent Quality Patient Care (New Article)
We presented a new article on clinical workload and promoting excellent clinical care.
- Dr. Kathleen Beebe — a longtime clinical faculty member at New Jersey Medical School and member of the bargaining committee — spoke to this proposal: Just as teaching faculty have the professional expertise to know what their students need to succeed, clinical faculty have substantial professional insight and knowledge about what is needed to ensure high-quality patient care. So, this proposal would establish a faculty patient care committee in every clinical department or division to review and make recommendations regarding patient care issues. More specifically: in recent years — and especially as Rutgers has deepened its partnership with the private Barnabas healthcare system — Rutgers and Barnabas have pushed for shorter visit times and other measures that increase profits but undermine the ability of clinicians to provide high-quality care to each and every patient. So, we proposed that changes to visit lengths in the outpatient setting, or to the patient-clinician ratio in the inpatient setting, would need to be approved by the patient care committee.
- We also proposed language to ensure that clinical faculty, in addition to their patient care responsibilities, will have adequate time in their workweek for their teaching, advising, and research responsibilities.
BHSNJ Compensation (Article 8B)
We presented clarifications to Article 8B:
- First, we clarified that we are proposing a unified set of minimum salaries for the Rutgers School of Nursing, which includes both legacy AFT and legacy BHSNJ faculty. For years, legacy AFT and legacy BHSNJ Nursing faculty have worked side by side, teaching the same students, collaborating on research projects, and serving on the same committees. These faculty should be covered by the same minimum pay scale.
- Second, we added language addressing on-call clinical responsibilities. We proposed language to ensure call time will be distributed fairly in each department and that increases in call time– which can lead to excessive fatigue and burnout– must be approved by the patient care committee.
Next steps:
We will present a new Article 15 (currently entitled “Professional Duties”), which will aim to ensure that faculty have a say in workload increases, and should they be implemented, are fairly compensated. Our contract expires in eight days.
Mark your calendar!
Our next scheduled session is on Thursday, June 25, from 10AM-2PM.
Other Upcoming Events
Click here for a full calendar
Our Bargaining Team
| Austin | Rooney | Camden | Philosophy & Religion |
| Beth | Adubato | Newark | School of Criminal Justice |
| Bryan | Sacks | Camden | Philosophy & Religion |
| David | Letwin | College Ave-NB | Rutgers Arts Online |
| Howie | Swerdloff | Cook-NB | Labor Studies & Employee Relations |
| Boris | Paskhover | Newark | Otolaryngology (NJMS) |
| Catherine | Monteleone | RWJMS-NB | Medicine |
| Claire | O’Connell | Busch-Nb | School Of Health Professions |
| Cynthia | Sutton | RSDM-Newark | RSDM Diagnostic |
| Jeff | Levine | College Ave-NB | Family Medicine (RWJ) |
| Josh | Bucher | College Ave-NB | Emergency Medicine (RWJ) |
| Kathleen | Beebe | Newark | Orthopaedics (NJMS) |
| Melissa | Rogers | Newark | Microbiology (NJMS) |
| Pankaj | Agarwalla | Newark | Neurosurgery (NJMS) |
| Rula | Btoush | Newark | School of Nursing |
| Stephan | Schwander | NB Piscataway | SPH |
| Tessa | Bergsbaken | Newark | Immunity & Inflammation (NJMS) |
| LaToya | Gibbons | Camden | Enrollment & Student Success |
| Miguel | Rodriguez | College Ave-NB | School of Arts and Sciences |
| Adrian | Liu | College Ave-NB | Philosophy |
| Alexander | Steiner | RCI | Radiation Oncology |
| Annika | Barber | Busch-NB | Microbiology |
| Becky | Givan | Cook-NB | Labor Studies & Employee Relations |
| Britt | Paris | College Ave-NB | Library & Information Science |
| Bryan | Oller | Newark | Physics |
| Carlos | Decena | Livingston-NB | Latino & Hispanic Caribbean St |
| Chidera | Ntiwunka-Ifeanyi | Busch-NB | Biomedical Engineering |
| Emily | Marker | Camden | History |
| Ian | Oiler | Newark | Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine/Earth and Environmental Sciences |
| Kathy | Lopez | Camden | Public Policy |
| Kyle | Riismandel | Newark | History |
| Lee | Carpenter | Camden | Law School |
| Lily | Todorinova | Douglass-NB | New Brunswick Library |
| Paul | O’Keefe | Livingston-NB | Geography |
| Season | Qiu | Newark | Molecular And Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Tara | Matise | Busch-NB | Genetics |
| Heather | Pierce | College Ave-NB | Political Science |
| Luis | Soto | Livingston-NB | Criminal Justice |