Dear colleague,
We’re asking you to stand with your colleagues at an outdoors speakout at the Board of Governors meeting on Wednesday, October 6, at 11:30 a.m. Click here to sign up to attend and to speak at the speakout or ask a question at the BoG meeting.
Why is it important to attend this in-person speakout? We have a lot we need to say to the governors. Thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer article published yesterday, we have a spotlight on how management mishandled the faculty salary equity program, particularly in Camden. Read it if you haven’t already.
Importantly, the speakout will help us reach more people from our own ranks, more effectively than any email or work meeting. And we can reach people beyond our ranks. We’ll be able to talk to Rutgers-Camden students, whose education depends on whether we together challenge the administration’s upside-down priorities. When students work in a common struggle with faculty and staff, we’ll really put some pressure on the BoG and management.
This is also a chance to stand with our colleagues in Camden—and show that we won’t tolerate their just demands being disrespected and dismissed. If you live in or around Philadelphia, Camden is right across the river, so please come out.
There are so many issues that urgently need to be addressed right now:
- Since the BoG has chosen Camden for its first in-person meeting, that’s an opportunity to pressure them to lift the drastic financial restrictions imposed on the campus—restrictions justified by a manufactured budget deficit that is less than half the size of what Rutgers Athletics loses every year.
- Health and safety is at the forefront of everyone’s minds, but the Rutgers administration is not responding to this dangerous phase of the pandemic with the measures we need—like surveillance testing to curb the spread of the Delta variant.
- The initial decisions from the faculty salary equity program are highly disappointing. A program that was supposed to lift up faculty into equity is consigning some of our colleagues—especially in Camden—to being underpaid indefinitely.
- Graduate funding extensions need to be expanded to cover all grad students—and given the revelations that the administration sat on the bulk of federal and state COVID relief funds, we know they can be expanded.
- The BoG and management need to answer for the scandalous financial mess of Rutgers Athletics. How was the athletics department allowed to run up a quarter-billion-dollar debt, and what’s being done to make sure it never happens again?
During the pandemic, Board of Governors meetings became empty, stage-managed video conferences at which the governors heard almost exclusively from the top administration. If the BoG is serious about its mission of overseeing Rutgers in the interests of the whole community, they need to hear from all of us. If you can make it, we want to see you in front of Camden Campus Center on Wednesday, October 6, at 11:30 a.m. Click here to sign up for the picket.
Our Camden colleagues need your support, so please come if you can. Camden Campus Center is at 326 Penn St. Don’t plan on parking in a campus lot. There is street parking nearby, but bring along some quarters—these are old-style parking meters. Click here for driving directions and a link to more info on parking. And don’t forget the train option—it will take longer, but you can get a train from the Newark or New Brunswick station to Trenton, and then switch to a train to Camden.
In solidarity,
Becky and Todd
Rebecca Givan, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Todd Wolfson, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rutgers AAUP-AFT Facebook page: https://facebook.com/RUaaup/
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @ruaaup
Freedom School YouTubeChannel: https://rutgersaaup.org/YouTube
Find the latest messages to members and union statements here.
For union merch, email us at aaup@rutgersaaup.org.
Read our FAQ: Know Your Contract, Know Your Rights!