Will Rutgers University unions decide to strike? Vote begins Tuesday

Could Rutgers University face its first faculty strike in its history? A union vote on Tuesday could authorize union leadership to call a strike at its regional campuses in New Brunswick, Camden and Newark.

The two unions involved include the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents full-time faculty, graduate workers, post-doctoral associates, and counselors with the Educational Opportunity Fund program.

Rebecca Givan, president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT and an associate professor at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said voting would last 10 days. The vote is not a vote for a strike, but a vote to allow elected union representatives to authorize a strike.

If the vote passes, the representatives could call a strike at any time.

The union vote will coincide with Rutgers Board of Governors meeting taking place at the Paul Robeson Campus Center in Newark.

Amy Higer, president of Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and a part-time lecturer at the New Brunswick’s political science department, said the unions’ contracts with the university expired on June 30.

“We’ve been bargaining since July, but very sporadically and not on the major issues until very recently,” Higer said. “We’ve been spending a lot of time on very small things and the big things, they are not taking seriously.”

The three big demands from the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union include job security, fractional appointments and healthcare.

“We have to get rehired for our jobs, each and every semester no matter how long we’ve been teaching at Rutgers,” said Higer, who has taught at the university for over two decades.

Job security would mean multi-semester or multi-year contracts, she said. Higher education has been hiring more contingent faculty members, which she compared to gig work.

“You hire them when you need them and fire them when you no longer need them,” Higer said.

Fractional appointments for part-time faculty would mean proportional pay, she added. If a part-time faculty member teaches a quarter of the classes that full-time lecturers teach, that part-time lecturer would get paid a quarter of the salary.

The union is also asking for healthcare.

“About 20 percent of adjunct faculty go without any healthcare," Higer said. "They can’t afford to buy it, and Rutgers doesn’t offer us their healthcare plans.”

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Rutgers AAUP-AFT has been advocating for the Adjunct Faculty Union’s demands, Givan said, in addition to their own members' demands, which include living wages for graduate student workers, affordable housing, and the end to withholding student transcripts for outstanding debt.

In a list of demands on its website, it asks for “raises that keep up with inflation” and a $15 minimum wage.

“Having fairly paid faculty and grad workers directly benefit students,” Givan said.

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If a strike is authorized, it would be the second time members of Rutgers AAUP-AFT authorized a strike, according to Givan. The first authorized strike was adverted when the union reached a deal with the university hours before the strike was set the begin.

In a statement, Dory Devlin, spokeswoman for the university, wrote, “We are committed to working as hard as we possibly can to negotiate contracts with our unions that are fair, reasonable and responsible. We have already held more than 100 bargaining sessions with our faculty and staff unions, and will continue to meet in good faith with them until we reach comprehensive agreements on mandatorily negotiable issues, including compensation. We are hopeful that agreements with all of our unions can be reached as quickly as possible.”

Higer said a strike would involve faculty not teaching classes and forming picket lines in front of buildings.

“We do not want to do this," she said. "We’ve been very reluctant to go to this point.”

Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Rutgers University: Union vote could authorize faculty strike