Dear colleague,
We’re writing to welcome you back after a challenging few months this summer. With classes beginning this week, we have a lot to discuss with you about our vision of the university we want—one that prioritizes our mission of research, teaching, and service and that acts in the best interests of faculty, staff, and students—and how we might realize this vision. Please join the all-member town hall meeting this Thursday at 7 p.m.; if you haven’t already, RSVP here.
As we wrote last week, our union is supporting the national call for scholars to stand in solidarity for racial justice on September 8–9. In addition to promoting national activities, we’re working with student groups, other unions, and social justice organizations to organize a “Rutgers Unions Support the #ScholarStrike” event. We’re also working toward an action in New Brunswick later in the month that can involve all our communities and unite the issues of our people-centered agenda.
This has been a busy summer for the union, with many faculty and graduate workers in Newark, Camden, and New Brunswick spending hundreds of hours organizing to confront the legacy of the Barchi administration and its upside-down priorities. Management has already laid off more than 1,000 of our coworkers and is threatening worse to come. Rather than even acknowledge the absurdity of sinking over $100 million into Rutgers Athletics in the past year alone, the administration is concentrating its cutbacks in the very areas that are guaranteed to harm the core missions of learning, research, and serving our communities. If we’re going to change the direction of our university, we’ll need all of us working together (take a moment now to RSVP for the Town Hall to get the Zoom link for Thursday at 7 p.m.).
Below is a list of communications, statements, and reports about the battles we’ve been involved in since last spring. Please take a few minutes to catch up—or remind yourself—about what we’ve been doing this summer:
What We’re Fighting For
- Beyond the Neoliberal University (interview with Todd Wolfson)
- What We’re Fighting For in Ten Words
Fighting Layoffs and Cuts
- Standing in Solidarity with Our PTL Colleagues
- Coalition of Rutgers Unions Statement on Layoffs
- Our Coalition’s Powerful Live-Streamed Press Conference
The “Fiscal Emergency” and Our Stolen Raises
- Barchi’s Parting Gift: What’s Missing from Your Paycheck?
- Here Are the Facts about the Fiscal Emergency
- AAUP-AFT University Budget and Priorities Committee Report on the Fiscal Emergency
- Union Files Suit over Rutgers Athletics’ “Financial Black Hole”
Rutgers’ Reopening and Online Teaching
- Remote Teaching Best Practices Webinars
- What We Need for Quality Online Learning
- Rutgers Isn’t Living Up to Its Reopening Responsibilities
International Graduate Workers
- Rutgers Must Pay Incoming International Grads Living Abroad
- Another Win for International Grad Workers, but the Fight Isn’t Over
Black Lives Matter
- We Support the Calls to Action for Racial Justice
- Support the “Strike for Black Lives”
- Call to Action: Justice for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor
AFT Convention
In solidarity,
Todd and Becky
Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rebecca Givan, Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rutgers AAUP-AFT Facebook page: https://facebook.com/RUaaup/
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @ruaaup
Find the latest messages to members and union statements here.
Read how Rutgers AAUP-AFT is confronting the crisis here.