TL;DR
Our unified bargaining team met with management in Newark on July 30. Once again, management sent back a counter that crossed out the majority of the union’s proposals, just as they did during the last School of Health Professions (SHP) bargaining session on June 3, when they rejected essentially everything we had proposed. In response, 83 members from SHP then signed onto a petition calling on the Dean of the School of Health Professions to recognize their workload concerns and agree to our proposal. We presented the petition in today’s session, accompanied by testimonials from multiple members in support of the union’s proposal.
Highlights of the Session
Management’s Counterproposal:
During the prior SHP session, the university rejected all of the union’s proposals in Article 40b without offering any productive or substantive suggestions for addressing faculty concerns. After pressing for a real counter and refusing to meet until management provided something more substantive that seriously addressed the workload concerns of our members, management sent back a counterproposal at the beginning of the session that continued to strike out most of the substantive elements of our proposal.
Delivery of Petition
Claire O’Connell and Danielle Nanni from the School of Health Professions delivered a petition signed by 83 faculty members. In the petition, members called upon Dean DiGiovanni of the School of Health Professions to acknowledge their workload concerns and support the union’s contract proposals to address them. Read a more in-depth summary of the initial union proposals here.
Member Testimonials on SHP Workload Concerns
Ten faculty members at SHP shared testimonials. In their testimonials, faculty spoke to many workload issues, including the following concerns that the Union’s proposal seeks to address:
- Recognizing that larger classes require more work – and ensuring that faculty get appropriate workload credit (i.e. reduction in other work and/or overload pay) for teaching larger classes
- Ensuring that faculty have adequate protected time for research and scholarship
- Ensuring that faculty are recognized and receive adequate workload credit for service work; for advising students; and for taking on crucial roles in their departments and programs such as clinical and course coordination.
For instance, SHP faculty member David Kietrys (Doctor of Physical Therapy program) offered the following reflection:
“Our class size has increased by about 25% in recent years. Even when teaching the same course, the amount of work and effort involved has grown greatly due to the need to revamp and reorganize lab activities, the need to assess and advise a larger number of students, the need to train and supervise a larger number of lab TAs– all this extra time is required to ensure that we can still deliver a high quality course to the larger number of students. That needs to be considered in the calculation of workloads.”]
Anthony Zazzarino (Associate Professor, Psychiatric Rehabilitation), speaking on receiving accurate workload credit:
“Speaking specifically from my own experience, I have concerns that the workload calculation process in my department has not consistently reflected the responsibilities outlined in our contract. Throughout my career, I have contributed substantial service to my department, school, and profession, yet I have not received workload credit for these activities.”
Next steps:
Our unified bargaining team will meet to plan our response to their counterproposal. Now that management has received our petition and heard member testimonials, we hope that they will more fully consider the union’s position.
Mark your calendar!
Our next scheduled session is on Friday, August 7, from 9AM-1PM.
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 |