Dear colleague,
On Monday, you received an email from Rutgers asking your opinion about management’s budgeting system, known as RCM (Responsibility Center Management). Well…we have something to say about RCM, don’t we?!?
Whoever wrote the survey you were asked to fill out doesn’t seem to know much about what we do. In a question about our responsibilities at Rutgers, you’ll have to choose between graduate education, undergraduate education, or research—you can only pick one! They won’t let us make a comment, either—it’s multiple choice only. Still, we urge you to fill out the survey and let management know you “strongly disagree” that RCM has any value in a public university dedicated to teaching, research, and service.
If you want to brush up on the facts about RCM before you fill out the survey, you can check out these resources from our union:
Click to hear our colleague Chenjerai Kumanyika explain RCM
Click to read our union’s fact sheet about RCM
RCM is a tool that management uses to siphon off money from the parts of the university that do the teaching and research in order to fund their misplaced priorities. RCM came up again and again when SAS-New Brunswick faculty, grad workers, staff, and students protested layoffs and program cuts at a School meeting in December. We won a strong majority—78 percent of SAS-NB faculty who voted—to pass a resolution on convening a faculty and staff committee to recommend alternatives to these cuts. But we have a fight ahead of us to change the university’s priorities.
Let’s start now by telling management what we think of RCM!
In solidarity,
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.
Watch Todd’s video on the battles for our union today.