The contract negotiations between the Union of Rutgers Administrators-American Federation of Teachers and the University administrators have not reached a settlement yet, and the delay looks to continue, as the relationship seems to strain.
“When President [Richard L.] McCormick gives his State of the University speech on Friday, URA members will warn members and passersby to avoid the event as a toxic hazard,” URA-AFT Executive Vice President Nat Bender said.
Members of the URA-AFT plan to boycott McCormick’s address Friday at the University Senate meeting in the Multipurpose Room of the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus.
“There are no developments in talks. We will not be going to the address for the health and safety of our members,” URA-AFT President Lucye Millerand said. “We will be informing our members that going to this address will cause them some symptoms, so they should go to more relaxing events instead like yoga on Livingston [campus].”
Bender said members of the URA-AFT are in risk of such tongue-in-cheek symptoms as chronic fatigue from doing three people’s jobs, foreclosure virus spreading to laid-off employees and month-long incubation period since they last spoke with the administration.
“We’re trying to use irony to bear, but none of this is a laughing matter. Other unions defer raises to save jobs, but Rutgers doesn’t,” Millerand said. “Our goal is to save jobs to serve the faculty, to serve the students, to serve the public.”
On their Web site, they have a list of 10 things to do instead of going to the address, such as traveling through the Livingston campus construction, driving past Rutgers Stadium to see “where the member’s raises went” and watching McCormick’s address online on mute and making up their own dialogues.
“We continue to get notices of members getting laid off, who are forced to deplete their pensions so they don’t lose their homes,” Millerand said. “Our members are contacting us to ask for help.”
The administration did not want to discuss the details of ongoing negotiations with bargaining units.
“We are in discussions with the URA and a number of other unions,” Vice President for Academic Affairs Philip J. Furmanski said. “What I would point [out] is that we came to a very good agreement with the American Association of University Professors-AFT, which is the largest group that represents the faculty, which is the largest salary base.”
There are 13 bargaining units that the University negotiates with and some of them are in the same union, he said. The URA represents 1,900 members from the three campuses.
“We have been following, with the unions, the state package which calls for givebacks and furloughs and things of that sort,” Furmanski said. “We’ve been trying … to tailor the program for academic institutions … We came to a very good agreement with our faculty unions in that regard, so we are looking to apply some of the same principles to our other unions. “
University administration settled with the AAUP-AFT, the part time lecturers and the graduate students.
“We’re pretty close with a couple others — that’s the status at this point,” Furmanski said. “We don’t want to drag on and we certainly would like to reach settlement as soon as possible.”
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who is also in contract negotiations with the administration, was not available for comment at press time.
“There is an enormous amount of anxiety among our employees,” Furmanski said. “Obviously, it’s a very difficult economic time and so the protection of their jobs and what their salaries are going to be are things we would like to settle for their sake since it’s a very uncertain period and so they would like to know what the situation is going to be and we would certainly like to do that with them.”
Union to boycott president’s address
Published: Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Updated: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 22:09
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