Takeaway: Sign a petition supporting our nearly 600 postdoc colleagues as they continue to fight for a new contract after going without a raise for nearly two and a half years.
Dear colleagues,
Happy Thanksgiving to you and everyone close to you. As you reflect on this long and difficult year during the holiday week, let’s continue to support one another in these tough times. We ask you to show your support for our postdoc colleagues by signing this petition of support.
Postdocs are still working under an expired contract. The result of this delay in the bargaining process is that nearly 600 postdocs have worked without a raise since July 1, 2018. Many have actually come and gone through Rutgers without receiving a single salary increase during their entire time at our university.
These colleagues have been left to await a response from management about health care, housing and child care assistance, and professional development. The next bargaining session for the postdoc contract is scheduled for Monday, November 30. If management finally agrees to a contract, the new postdoc agreement would run from July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2022, and sync up with our own union contract moving forward.
As faculty and grad worker colleagues, we need to use our voices to demand that the postdoc contract be settled by the end of the current semester. As Principal Investigators, many of us hold the grants and contracts supporting postdoc work. So we know that the resources are available to settle the agreement along the lines of every other union contract at Rutgers.
Please sign this petition before you safely sit down with family on this Thanksgiving. You might also write to a postdoc you know to express your support in their negotiations. We are all part of the same union, just with different contracts. If you are a PI or work with postdocs in your lab or department and want to show more support, please fill in this form, and we’ll follow up with you on other actions you can take in the coming weeks.
In solidarity and with warm holiday wishes,
Todd and Becky
Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rebecca Givan, Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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Find the latest messages to members and union statements here.
Read how Rutgers AAUP-AFT is confronting the crisis here.