Our union has a proud history, dating back more than 50 years, of representing full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdocs, and EOF counselors at Rutgers University. Over that time, we’ve won some of the strongest contracts in public higher education, inspiring other academic unions to fight for what we’ve achieved:
- Strong salaries across all ranks, with major gains for non-tenure-track and adjunct faculty, graduate workers, and postdocs over the past decade.
- Improved job security provisions for the most vulnerable and a strong grievance procedure to challenge non-reappointment and denial of tenure
- Guaranteed funding for PhD candidates and a process to reclassify grad fellows as TA/GAs
- Health insurance access expanded to all full-time faculty, postdocs, and TA/GAs
- Academic freedom protections and further advances toward #OneFaculty union
- Central funding of unbudgeted salary increases for grant-funded faculty, postdocs, and grad workers
- More control over teaching and research conditions, including the restoration of faculty involvement in scheduling
All of us enjoy the benefits of what our unions have won over the years because of the determination of our members to fight for them. We know many of you who aren’t yet members of your union support our efforts and goals, and we appreciate that support. But we need more of you to take the step of joining.
It takes just a minute to join; click here and fill out the form.
When you join our union, you become part of our efforts to maintain the advances we’ve won and to achieve more for everyone we represent. Our members ARE the union. Members become the union’s elected leaders, discuss and decide what we fight for, determine our union’s vision, and vote on contracts and agreements with the university. Our power as a union comes from our membership: together, we’ve made a better Rutgers, and we intend to make it better still.
We need your voice and participation in your union. And to be blunt, we need your financial support through paying union dues. Our unions fight for every faculty member, grad worker, postdoc, and EOF counselor at Rutgers, regardless of whether you are a member or not. But it takes money to win those battles—money from the dues union members pay with each biweekly paycheck.
Our dues are an investment in our own future. The small dues deduction from our paychecks pays for the contract negotiations, legal representation and contract enforcement, and organizing. Full-time faculty pay only 1 percent of their annual salary in dues—less than many higher ed unions. TAs/GAs pay 0.8 percent of annual salary, postdoctoral associates pay 0.85 percent of annual salary, and adjunct lecturers pay 1.25 percent of their semester’s wages. So, for example, a faculty member earning $80,000 per year pays $30.65 in dues per paycheck; a TA/GA making $35,335 a year pays $13.03 per paycheck; a postdoc earning the minimum salary of $56,963 a year pays $16.37 per paycheck, and a PTL 1 paid $7,788 for one three-credit class pays $8.93 per paycheck. See this chart for more information on dues.
From state funding to academic freedom, public higher education is under attack around the country. There is no better defense against these attacks than the collective power a union like ours is capable of organizing. We have more fights ahead of us, and the stronger and bigger our membership is, the more certain we can be that we’ll win them. If you haven’t yet joined, now is a great time to do so.
Ready to join? Click here and fill out the form. Still not ready? Click here to email your union, and we’ll set up a one-on-one discussion with one of our organizing team members.