“This is a politically motivated attack to silence education unions”
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—Unions representing more than 10,000 educators, researchers, clinicians, and others at Rutgers University will ask a Middlesex County Superior Court judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks financial damages from the unions, union leaders, and union members who went on a five-day strike in April 2023.
A hearing on the unions’ motion to dismiss the suit will take place on Friday, January 31, at 3 p.m. in the Middlesex County Superior Court building in Courtroom 203.
The suit filed last March accuses the unions of causing financial damages and emotional distress for as many as 67,000 students with the five-day-long work action. Union leaders say the strike, the first by educators in Rutgers history, resulted not only in strong contracts for more than 10,000 academic employees but better learning and living conditions for students and the entire Rutgers community.
“This suit is a politically motivated attack, one of many filed by a notorious anti-labor law firm that wants to silence education unions with a strong history of fighting for better working and learning conditions in our schools, from pre-K to higher education, and for a living wage and fair standards of living for all educators and researchers,” said Todd Wolfson, national president of the Association of American University Professors and president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, one of the three unions being sued.
The main attorney suing the unions, Daniel Suhr, the president of the Center for American Rights, has a long anti-labor history, including as an aide to ex-Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, whose anti-union reign caused a statewide uprising. Suhr is also suing at least three other teachers unions that have taken strike action: the Chicago Teachers Union, Newton (Mass.) Teachers Association, and Kentucky 120 United-AFT.
The suit names as defendants Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents more than 6,000 full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and counselors; the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, which represents some 2,800 adjunct lecturers; and AAUP-BHSNJ, which represents 1,400 biomedical faculty in Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences facilities throughout the state; as well as the three unions’ statewide and national affiliates.
“Our unions didn’t undertake our historic strike lightly,” said Bryan Sacks, president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union. “It had deep and widespread support among our members and was designed to improve both our working conditions and our students’ learning conditions. We will continue to fight to provide our students with the best learning conditions possible.”
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