Dear colleague,
We are writing to full-time faculty to share some important updates about the Salary Equity Program. We have negotiated significant improvements to the program, but as you may know, progress has been extremely slow, and many applications have been held up. Our union has agreed to a pause in new applications to the equity program in 2025 to give the administration time to implement the negotiated improvements for those who have already applied.
The portal for new applications, which was supposed to open on January 1, will remain closed this calendar year—but anyone who applies in 2026 will get an equity adjustment retroactive to this year, as if they had applied in 2025. We know this will be a disappointment for any of you who were preparing to apply this year, but we believe this pause is in the best interests of all of us.
To see what we’ve achieved with this program since we won it in our 2018–22 contract, click here to read a report prepared by Dana Britton and Cynthia Daniels, our union’s codirectors of the program, that summarizes data from the last five years. The report suggests two conclusions.
First, there is much to celebrate. Faculty members have filed 504 applications on all of our campuses. The university has awarded almost $5 million in equity raises in those cases. Though some of the 504 applications are still in progress, of those with a final decision, 73 percent of faculty have received awards, with a median salary increase of more than 11 percent in these cases.
Second, challenges remain. The program has a persistent backlog; more than 100 applications await processing. Our calculation indicates that the median time to decision for requests is 582.5 days, or more than a year and a half—with the longest wait for a decision being 1,156 days, or over three years. This backlog has generated uncertainty and led some faculty to conclude, logically enough, that they are better served by reapplying than by waiting for a decision on their first applications. As a result, there are sometimes multiple applications by the same faculty members in the system simultaneously.
Campus inequities also persist. Table 1 in the report illustrates one example in detail. Though Camden faculty requestors received raises equal to the university median percentage (about 11 percent), the actual dollar amount they received was the smallest of any campus. The median adjusted salary for Camden applicants after getting equity awards is lower than the median pre-award salary for applicants on any other campus. While some of this is due to preexisting inequalities, those inequalities have been exacerbated by a regression formula used by the administration that penalizes the work of Camden faculty simply because of their campus.
As we said, we’ve won significant improvements in the program over the past year: the administration has finally agreed to stop penalizing Camden faculty in the regression formula, and they will be required to make more qualitative assessments of all equity applications rather than relying on a formula that compounds existing inequities. But the program’s backlog only grew larger while we were negotiating these improvements.
This is why, after many frustrating hours of negotiations, the union agreed to a pause of new applications in the Salary Equity Program for 2025. This pause should allow for existing applications to be fully processed, and the portal for new applications will reopen in January 2026.
But we would not have agreed to this pause without a signed commitment from the administration to make any equity raises resulting from new applications in 2026 retroactive to this year. For those of you who plan to apply, you won’t receive any equity award until after the 2026 applications are fully processed, but if and when you do, you will receive the increase retroactive to January 2025.
We want to thank Dana and Cyndi for their tireless work and again urge you to read their report! If you have any questions about the Salary Equity Program, please contact us at aaup@rutgersaaup.org.
In solidarity,
Todd, Becky, and Miguel
Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rebecca Givan, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Miguel Rodriguez, Secretary-Treasurer, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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