Takeaway: You’ll see the canceled raises we won back in your paychecks this week. Read on for information about what to look for when you review your paycheck.
Dear colleague,
Our paychecks this week will contain the merit raises due in July 2020, which we fought to win back after management tried to cancel them a year ago.
We had to wait a month longer than we should have to get these raises for no other reason than management’s incompetence. The increases under the Faculty Compensation Program (FCP) were supposed to be paid in our first paycheck in July, but Senior Vice President for Human Resources and “Organizational Effectiveness” Vivian Fernández announced at the end of June that her department was too busy to pay our raises on time. Then she went on vacation.
Our Coalition of Rutgers Unions asked an arbitrator to require management to pay the raises on time, and we won a ruling in our favor. But it came too late to get the increases paid any sooner than this month. Our 2.5 percent across-the-board raise due in July of this year will be paid on March 1, 2022.
We’ll at least get everything we’re owed retroactive to July 1 of this year. Check this paycheck carefully to make sure you got the retroactive increase. Thanks to a grievance we won last fall, you’ve been able to find out how much your FCP increase should be since last December; click here to log into the FCP online system. Go to the salary history in your Rutgers portal to compare your salary as of June 30, 2021, with your salary now and confirm that the FCP increase has been applied. If you got a promotion or reappointment increase effective July 1 of this year, that increase will now be recalculated on base pay that includes the FCP raise. Please review your paycheck; if you think management made any errors, email us at aaup@rutgersaaup.org.
We’re only getting our hard-earned salary increases because our Coalition of Rutgers Unions fought for them and for our other people-centered priorities, including a no-layoff commitment for staff, funding increases for grad workers, and the end to the PTL hiring freeze. By offering furloughs for full-time faculty and staff under a work-sharing program, we were able to counter management’s plans for layoffs, cuts, and austerity with an alternative to protect the vulnerable and unite our union coalition. That’s the kind of solidarity we’ll need as we face new battles and challenges this fall.
In solidarity,
Becky and Todd
Rebecca Givan, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Todd Wolfson, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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