Dear colleague,
We will return to our classrooms, labs, and libraries today proud of the gains we have made—but ready and willing to keep fighting until we win a fair contract for ALL.
Late Friday night, our unions approved a framework for a new contract and suspended our strike. The framework (you can read the text here) locks in major victories, especially for the most vulnerable among us. But there are still open issues that have to be resolved before we have a full Tentative Agreement that our whole membership will vote on. We have only suspended the strike, not canceled it. If we don’t win what we need on these open issues, we can and will continue with the work stoppage.
Our biomedical faculty colleagues in AAUP-BHSNJ especially have numerous unaddressed proposals, including establishing a family leave policy (yes, really!) and protections against Florida-style detenuring. Graduate workers need a guaranteed five years of funding starting now, a subsidy for grad and postdoc parents to help with childcare, and diversity assistantships to increase access to grad education. Adjunct faculty are still fighting for access to health insurance.
We have to keep the pressure on while bargaining continues this week. Watch for more emails today and tomorrow with plans for action. Bargaining on Tuesday will focus on BHSNJ’s open issues, so all three unions will be mobilizing to make sure the administration knows we won’t let anyone be left behind. And if we don’t have a Tentative Agreement, you can be sure we’ll be greeting the Board of Governors when they meet in New Brunswick on Thursday!
We’ve already started holding meetings to discuss what we’ve won and what we still need to win. You can watch the livestream of the Saturday town hall with an introduction to what’s in the framework. Grad workers and the Newark chapter of the full-time unit met yesterday. PTLs met with members twice over the weekend. The full-time unit’s New Brunswick Chapter has a meeting set for tomorrow (Tuesday, April 18), at 7 p.m., and the Camden Chapter is meeting Wednesday, April 19, at 6 p.m. There will be more meetings throughout the week, so stay tuned for that information, too.
We only got as far as we have so far because of the power of our strike last week. We thank all of you who gave your spirit and energy to that incredible action. Now we have to finish the job, so please come to the actions and meetings we plan for this week—and keep the pressure on!
In solidarity,
Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, and AAUP-BHSNJ
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AAUP-BHSNJ website: https://onerutgersfaculty.org/
AAUP-BHSNJ Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RUaaupbhsnj
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