Dear colleague,
Day Two of our strike, and it will be beautiful weather for a picket line! To win a transformative contract, we need ALL members who can to come out and join us. Please sign up for picket shifts (locations listed below) if you haven’t already:
- New Brunswick – Sign up for picket shifts
- Newark – Sign up for picket shifts
- Camden – Sign up for picket shifts
Late last night, you received an email from President Holloway that ended by admonishing us “to be respectful of our students and supportive of their academic progress.” Let’s be clear: our picket lines have been and will continue to be a peaceful, nonviolent expression of our determination to make a better Rutgers for our students and workers.
Meanwhile, President Holloway’s labor negotiators have spent almost a year resisting our proposals for a fair contract, including our calls for a freeze on Rutgers dorms and rental properties and forgiveness of students’ outstanding fines and fees that prevent them from getting transcripts and diplomas. Such punishments are not respectful to our students or us. Perhaps that is why so many undergraduates are joining us on the picket lines.
President Holloway also took the opportunity to renew his threats to seek an injunction against our strike “if there is no movement toward an agreement.” An open letter signed by more than 1,300 leading scholars and academic workers across the country points out just how disappointing such threats are from a labor and civil rights historian. Rather than threatening us, we urge President Holloway to demand movement from his negotiators, who have repeatedly said no to our core proposals.
Sadly, just when Governor Murphy had called on our unions and the Rutgers administration to come to Trenton to negotiate, President Holloway has again resorted to union-busting tactics and threats. We are in Trenton today and are bargaining in good faith there, as we have for nearly a year—with the hope that Governor Murphy will influence the Holloway administration to finally take bargaining seriously.
To find out how things went today, please join us at our nightly Zoom update at 8 p.m. Click here to register for the Zoom link or watch the livestream on our union YouTube channel. Meanwhile, make plans with colleagues to get down to the picket line today.
Picket Lines and Locations
New Brunswick – Sign up for picket shifts
- College Avenue: 43 College Ave., outside Scott Hall (smaller pickets may be set up in front of Winants, Academic Building, and SCI)
- Downtown New Brunswick: Civic Square Building, 33 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick
- Cook/Douglass: corner of George Street and Chapel Drive/Nichol Road
- Livingston: Livingston Student Center, 84 Joyce Kilmer Ave., Piscataway
- Busch: outside Campus Center, 604 Bartholomew Rd., Piscataway, bus stop side
Newark – Sign up for picket shifts
- Plaza in front of Robeson Campus Center, 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
- Plaza outside Law School, between University Avenue and Washington Street
Camden – Sign up for picket shifts
- Outside Campus Center
In solidarity,
Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, 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
Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/rutgersptlfc
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @ruaaup_ptl
Visit our redesigned website: https://rutgers-ptlfc.org/
AAUP-BHSNJ campaign website: https://onerutgersfaculty.org/
AAUP-BHSNJ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RUaaupbhsnj