[ Union members representing three Rutgers University unions took
to picket lines on Monday morning as 9,000 members went on strike.]
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RUTGERS STRIKE SENDS PROFESSORS TO PICKET LINES CHANTING ‘RU
LISTENING? WE ARE PICKETING.’  
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Katie Kausch, Jackie Roman, Jeff Goldman
April 10, 2023
NJ.com
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_ Union members representing three Rutgers University unions took to
picket lines on Monday morning as 9,000 members went on strike. _

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Union members representing three Rutgers University unions took to
picket lines on Monday morning as 9,000 members went on strike
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an unprecedented standoff with the school’s leadership over a
contract impasse that has left the faculty without a contract since
last summer.

Striking union members gathered on the Voorhees Mall on the College
Avenue Campus in New Brunswick, near the law school in Newark and at
other locations on the New Brunswick-Piscataway and Camden campuses.

“RU listening? We are picketing,” the picketers chanted in New
Brunswick.

“Rutgers is for education, we are not a corporation” the crowd
chanted at picket lines in Newark, before taking aim at the
university’s president. “Holloway you can’t hide, we can see
your greedy side.”

* UNION, UNIVERSITY LEADERS TO MEET TODAY WITH GOV. MURPHY AS
NEGOTIATIONS RESUME
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Among the most prominent protesters Monday morning in New Brunswick
was Donna M. Chiern, the president of AFT-NJ, one of the three unions
striking.

“We seem to be investing more in non-academic areas than we are in
education,” she said, referring to the amount of money poured into
Rutgers athletics. “We gave a DoorDash account
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football players but so many of our students who go to this college
are going to food kitchens and eating Ramen noodles and we’re not
doing anything for them.”

Construction at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum on the New
Brunswick campus halted as the head of a teamsters union said his
members won’t cross the picket lines. He chanted alongside striking
workers nearby.

“We just think it’s is outrageous that the president of the
university cares more about sporting programs and the football stadium
than the quality of education,” said Charles Wowkanech, President of
the New Jersey AFL-CIO. “(President Jonathan Holloway) and his
cronies have taken care of themselves, giving themselves raises. I
think he should resign.”

The protesters included union members as well as non-union member
students who are supporting the striking educators.

“This deal the unions are proposing will benefit everyone as a whole
for the future,” said Jakob Pender, a freshman who was out picketing
on College Avenue early Monday. ”It’s super important. There’s a
reason why after 257 years today is the first day we’re on strike”

Pender, who was wearing a union T-shirt, said he has a job on campus
but it’s a non-union position. He said half of his classes are
canceled and he was unsure about the other half because he didn’t
receive word from his professors.

A doctoral student also weighed in on the strike.

The strike is about “a version of the university that doesn’t
require precarity to exist, and systematic exploitation, particularly
of adjunct and part time workers,” Aidan Selmer, a graduate student
worker said.

Selmer and his partner Vianna Iorio are both in the fourth year of a
six-year-long doctoral program in English. They were picketing
alongside their dog, Hester, who was wearing a “Waggin’ 4 Fair
Wages” t-shirt and enjoying the friendly attention from fellow
protestors.

The picketing on Monday is expected to continue until 5 p.m.

Union leaders have a daily 8 p.m. Zoom call to give members updates on
negotiations with the university.

The three striking unions
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which have been working without a contract since July 1, are: Rutgers
AAUP-AFT, which represents full-time faculty, graduate workers,
postdoctoral associates, and some counselors; the Rutgers Adjunct
Faculty Union, which represents part-time lecturers; and the
AAUP-BHSNJ, which includes faculty in the biomedical and health
sciences at Rutgers’ medical, dental, nursing, and public health
schools.

Faculty members at the medical and other health sciences schools will
continue performing essential research and patient care, but will
curtail duties that will not impact patient health and safety, the
union said.

Some of Rutgers’ other large unions said its workers will stay on
the job, even if the faculty are on strike.

The Union of Rutgers Administrators–AFT, which represents
administrative and professional employees, said last week
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it will not ask its members to walk off their jobs in a sympathy
strike with the faculty. But the union said its members can show
support by walking in picket lines and attending rallies outside of
work hours.

The Health Professionals and Allied Employees said it supports the
strike but will not walk off the job. “HPAE is still at the table
demanding a fair contract and we are not currently calling a strike
authorization vote,” it said in a statement. “If our union chooses
to consider a strike in the future, the subject will come to the
members in meetings and a membership vote.”

A labor history expert says the Rutgers strike is the most impactful
in at least a generation.

“Without a doubt the Rutgers strike is the largest — and most
significant — public sector strike in New Jersey in the last 30
years,” said Chris Rhomberg, a sociology professor at Fordham
University, who specializes in labor history. 

He said the Newark teachers’ strikes of 1970 and 1971 were a turning
point in state history, resulting in hundreds of arrests, but the
exact number of strikers was unclear. According to Rhomberg, the
Jersey City public school teachers went out in 2018 with around 3,800
workers, and the Robert Wood Johnson hospital workers in New Brunswick
went on strike in 2006 with 1,200.

Meanwhile, Holloway said Sunday he believes the two sides are close to
an agreement and the university will continue to negotiate.

“To say that this is deeply disappointing would be an
understatement,” Holloway said of the unions’ decision to strike.
“The continued academic progress of our students is our number one
concern, and we will do all that we can so that their progress is not
impeded by a strike.”

But union officials disagreed with Holloway’s assessment that the
two sides are close to a deal, said AAUW-AFT spokesman Alan Maas.
A union chart
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status of the negotiations shows nine out of 15 union proposals were
largely or entirely rejected by the university and one was ignored as
of Sunday.

_NJ Advance Media staff writer Jeff Goldman contributed to this
report._

* Rutgers University
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* Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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* Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union
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* AAUP-BHSNJ
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