RUTGERS STRIKE ‘SUSPENDED FOR NOW’
The faculty at Rutgers University ended their week-long strike April 15 after the three unions representing them reached a “framework” of an agreement with the school. Students at the school were slated to return to their classes on Monday, April 17.
Rutgers, the flagship in the New Jersey state university system, has 67,000 enrolled students. University said that the new agreement includes substantial pay raises for graduate school workers and part-time lecturers as well as stronger job security for part-time faculty.
The three unions involved in the strike were the American Association of University Professors-AFT representing full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates and counselors, the AAUP -BHSNJ representing faculty in the health and sciences departments, and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union representing part-time lecturers. The strike saw tenured professors join graduate school workers and other non-tenured faculty on the picket line.
The unions cautioned that, while there were some “profound victories” some issues continue to be unresolved and the return to work was not a cancellation but a suspension of the strikewith the possibility of renewing it if renewed bargaining did not produce a solution.
