FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 2004

CONTACT:
Rudy Bell, President
Patrick Nowlan, Staff Representative
732-445-2278

The Rutgers Council of the American Association of University Professors has reached tentative agreement on a new four-year contract with the University administration for its full time bargaining unit. The agreement covers faculty members, teaching assistants, and graduate (research) assistants on the Rutgers campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, and Camden.

The agreement was reached this past Monday with the assistance of a PERC-appointed mediator after 18 months of negotiations. It was approved this morning (June 17) by the AAUP’s Executive Council and will be sent to the membership for ratification. The effective date of the agreement will be July 1, 2003, and its expiration will be June 30, 2007. For details of the settlement: http://www.rutgersaaup.com.

History Professor Rudolph Bell, AAUP President, said "The agreement we have reached is a good one, for both sides. It gives highest priority to restoring the competitiveness of our graduate programs by offering significantly improved stipends for teaching and graduate assistants. It protects members of our bargaining unit from salary erosion due to inflation, at least from this July forward. The contract also provides for funds to recognize outstanding teaching, research, and service among the faculty.

There remain critical areas and unresolved issues that will be addressed by joint committees, ranging from grievance procedures to early retirement programs. I hope that the spirit of cooperation reflected in the final stages of reaching the agreement now being considered for ratification will continue to prevail as we address these outstanding matters.

I shall put my efforts unreservedly toward a YES vote on ratification of the agreement by our bargaining unit members. But I shall also be directing attention, as I hope the administration will do, to settlement of contracts with our sister unit of Part-time Lecturers, who do more than 30% of the undergraduate teaching at Rutgers and our small but vital unit of Economic Opportunity Fund counselors."

The agreement calls for economic increases to faculty that mirror those received over the same four-year period by faculty at the state’s four-year universities and colleges. Teaching and Graduate Assistants will see significant increases to their stipends over the next three years, starting on July 1, 2004.

In an important move, the AAUP proposed that the University refund all student fees ($1,078/year) paid by TA/GAs for the current year and waive them in all future years. Graduate student members of the AAUP Negotiating Team made compelling arguments and their colleagues demonstrated across the University in support of this proposal and for higher stipends.

AAUP Executive Council and Negotiating Team member Kristy King, a teaching assistant from the Political Science Department, said, "We’re thrilled with the outcome. Finally the administration is beginning to realize how important graduate labor is to the University, and to acknowledge that competitive salaries for graduate employees are essential for building and maintaining excellent graduate programs."

Increased stipends and waiver of fees for graduate student employees (TA/GAs) are two concrete ways to invest in the university’s graduate programs which directly benefits the undergraduate students being taught and supports the research projects being conducted at the university by its faculty.

The Part-time Lecturer Faculty Chapter of the Rutgers Council of the AAUP is currently negotiating its own new agreement with the University. Their previous agreement also expired on June 30, 2003 and the University has recently declared impasse. PERC will assign a mediator to assist with these negotiations. The administration’s current proposal would put PTLs at Rutgers among the lowest paid in the region. One thousand PTLs are affected by the agreement that is currently being negotiated.

The Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters represents 4,500 faculty members and TA/GAs, 1,000 Part-time Lecturers, and 25 EOF Counselors at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.