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The Tentative Agreement We Fought For: What You Need to Know

March 27, 2021

Takeaway: All members will be voting next week on a tentative agreement with management. Click to read about the highlights of the deal and the tentative agreement itself. We’ll hold a number of information sessions and meetings about the tentative agreement; click here for the full schedule.

Dear colleague,

Yesterday afternoon, the union’s Executive Council voted to recommend a tentative agreement from our fiscal emergency negotiations for a membership ratification vote. We believe this agreement is a strong step forward for our people-centered alternative that fights for the vulnerable. However, no agreement is final until our members ratify it.

We’ve put together a list of the key highlights of the tentative agreement. You can also click here to read the full text of the agreement. And next week, we’ll be holding a number of information sessions and meetings for you to ask your questions and discuss the tentative agreement. Click here to find the full list.

In return for management concessions on our core demands, we would agree to full-time faculty (with some exceptions) accepting furloughs for a half-day a week under a work-sharing arrangement through June 30. We know work-sharing will raise the most questions for the largest number of members; please read our updated FAQ to see if we’ve answered your questions and concerns. Thanks to the federal unemployment supplement currently in effect, 88 percent of faculty would be able to fully protect their income through filing for unemployment insurance (UI). No one wants to apply for UI, but this sacrifice helped us make progress on our other demands, especially for colleagues who are more vulnerable—staff, grads, and PTLs.

All members will be impacted by this vote, so please plan to attend information sessions and meetings next week. Department reps will be in touch, too, by text message, phone, and email. It’s important that you have every chance to ask questions and discuss the provisions of this agreement.

We didn’t get everything we wanted in this agreement. The grad funding extensions program in particular has shortcomings that we weren’t able to fix during nearly three months of negotiations. But in stopping further layoffs of staff and PTLs, improving the grad extensions program, and getting back our raises, we think we made progress on the key demands that you identified in a survey as priorities when we went into fiscal emergency negotiations.

Most importantly, this agreement opens the door for our union to fight for more. To make sure that the grad extensions program serves the maximum number of grads and is continued for as long as there is a need for it, our members—especially faculty who are in a position to advocate for TA/GAs—will need to start organizing right away if this agreement is ratified. We guarantee you that this fight will continue into our contract negotiations during the next academic year.

If the agreement is ratified, we will immediately launch a schedule of classes that walk you through the process of work-sharing. In the meanwhile, be sure to read this updated FAQ to see if your questions about work-sharing are answered here—and email aaup@rutgersaaup.org if they aren’t. We hope you have a good weekend, and we look forward to seeing you in our discussions next week. Click here to find the full schedule of meetings next week.

In solidarity,
Todd and Becky

Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rebecca Givan, Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT

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