Dear colleague,
In early March, the current presidents of the faculty unions at Rutgers announced a campaign to unite all faculty and instructors into one union, which will represent nearly 10,000 educators at Rutgers’ Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick campuses, as well as Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences units across New Jersey. The objective of this merger campaign is to overcome the artificial divisions between our unions so that we can advocate effectively for our needs and respond to the challenges that we face: job cuts, increased workloads without compensation, ever-larger class sizes, increasing precarity, canceled raises, and disrespect.
As former presidents of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and counselors, and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union (PTLFC-AAUP-AFT), which represents Part-Time Lecturers, we know too well how the current artificial divisions between faculty unions have been used by the Rutgers administration to ignore our legitimate concerns and to establish a two-tier system of faculty jobs that harms both full-time and part-time faculty.
You have an opportunity right now to be part of a movement which will strengthen the position of all educators at Rutgers. For part-time faculty, being united with full-time faculty in one organization will help us earn equal pay for equal work, job security, promotional opportunities, and health benefits. For full-time faculty, this merger will reduce Rutgers’ ability to use part-time instructors as a source of cheap, contingent labor to erode the status and academic freedom of full-time faculty.
We strongly urge you to join with us by signing our merger card. Your support is vital if we are to achieve the compensation, respect, and dignity that ALL Rutgers’ faculty—including part-time faculty—deserve.
In solidarity,
Amy Bahruth
Part-Time Lecturer, Labor Studies and Employment Relations, New Brunswick
Past President, PTLFC-AAUP-AFT
Richard Gomes
AFT-NJ Staff Representative; Former Part-Time Lecturer, English as a Second Language, Newark
Past President, PTLFC-AAUP-AFT
Lisa Klein
Distinguished Professor and Department Chair, Materials Science and Engineering, New Brunswick
Past President, PTLFC-AAUP-AFT
Mike Slott
Part-Time Lecturer, Labor Studies and Employment Relations, New Brunswick
Past President, PTLFC-AAUP-AFT
Rudy Bell
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, History, New Brunswick
Chairperson of the Retiree Assembly and Past President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Deepa Kumar
Professor, Journalism and Media Studies, New Brunswick
Co-chair, Rutgers University Committee on Diversity, Race, and Gender; Past President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Todd Wolfson
Associate Professor, Journalism and Media Studies, New Brunswick
General Vice President and Past President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT