By Kathy López, Grad Worker, Camden Leadership Committee, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
The bargaining session was slightly delayed while the union waited for a response from management on Proposed Package 1.
Further discussion followed about issues related to Clinically Focused University Practitioners (CFUP) in the biomedical sciences, centered in part around recruitment, the university’s right to assign work, and compensation for additional services.
Discussion returned to our proposed Memorandum of Agreement on Infosilem/CourseAtlas, specifically points 4, 5, 7, and 9, which had been returned to us by management without markup and needed to be compared side by side. There was additional confusion because language that had been previously agreed upon had been removed completely. Once these issues were sorted out, discussion returned to the role of departmental administration in scheduling courses and finally negotiations on points 7, 8, and 11. Members have been clear that we need the ability for program directors and chairs to modify schedules created by the Infosilem/Course Atlas algorithm.
Positives
Any day that we are able to meet at the table and move the discussion forward is a good day.
Negatives
Some language that had been settled in the Memorandum of Agreement on Infosilem/CourseAtlas was returned to us with changes and language completely removed that was previously agreed upon. This caused some confusion and delay. It’s not clear whether this was intentional.