Union-busting Mark Manigan doesn't belong on the Rutgers Board of Governors
The Rutgers AAUP-AFT faculty/graduate worker union, students and members of the larger Rutgers community are calling on Gov. Phil Murphy to remove Mark Manigan, president and CEO of RWJBarnabas Health, from the Rutgers Board of Governors because he doesn’t reflect our university’s values.
Nurses at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital have been on strike for two months over the primary demand of safe nurse-to-patient ratios. They are calling on the hospital to live up to its mission of “fostering an environment of excellence in all areas, including the provision of the highest quality, evidence-based patient care in collaboration with the hospital’s health care professionals.” Patients should have nurses who are able to give them the amount of care they require — because when they don’t have that, people die.
Instead of living up to their mission, Manigan and RWJBarnabas Health have rejected the demand for safe staffing —and now they have stripped striking nurses of their health insurance. An organization that claims to care about the expertise of its highly trained workforce has made it so that nurses cannot access the very thing they provide. These dedicated caregivers, who did so much for us during the pandemic, have been unable to see doctors or get prescriptions refilled since Sept. 1. Their children and partners’ lives are at risk.
Nonetheless, nurses continue to take that risk because patient lives are at risk every day when nurses are overworked and burned out, working extra shifts and covering extra patients because there are not enough nurses to meet patients’ needs.
This is not a problem at RWJ alone. In fact, 59% of nurses across the country report that increasing the number of nurses on staff would make their lives easier. Nurses on the picket line have told me that this is why many of the new graduates from Rutgers Nursing who start at the hospital don’t make it more than a year before they quit and find different forms of employment. In the Northeast as a whole, hospitals had an employee turnover rate of 22.2% last year.
The only way to stop this turnover is to pay a decent wage and guarantee safe nurse-to-patient ratios. Hospitals should put their patients over profit, and they can only do that by providing their employees with safe working conditions.
Instead of doing this, Manigan has spent the hospital’s money on hiring scab nurses — to the tune of $76.2 million, according to the hospital’s website. Why is he spending so much money that could be used to make his hospital safer for its patients?
Manigan and RWJBarnabas Health also filed for an injunction against the striking nurses that limits the number of picketers at any time to 15 and insists they don’t make noise. Apparently, he was getting tired of having to face the employees he’d rather go on exploiting and overworking.
Rutgers strike: NJ nurses deserve quality benefits and support — and not at vulnerable patients’ expense
Manigan’s values don’t align with those of Rutgers University. We are an institution that puts the good of our workers and students first. We pride ourselves in providing education for the good of the city, the state and the country. Our mission does not include honoring people who put profit over patients’ lives.
Therefore, we are circulating a petition to have Manigan removed from the Rutgers Board of Governors. Students, faculty, alumni, staff and community members: please sign so that we can show Murphy how much we support the rights of patients to good care and of nurses to fair labor practice.
Governor, you were the hero of our faculty strike last year. Please show the state of New Jersey your continued support for labor and remove Manigan from the Rutgers Board of Governors.
Julie Flynn is a member of Rutgers AAUP-AFT and an assistant teaching professor in the writing program at Rutgers-New Brunswick.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ nurses' strike: Mark Manigan shouldn't be on Rutgers board
