Dear colleague,
Starting on Wednesday, December 23, faculty members can go online to see the merit increase you would have gotten on July 1 if the university hadn’t canceled our raises after declaring a fiscal emergency. Our union filed a successful grievance to force the university to let you access these recommendations—and we will keep fighting to make management reverse its other actions during the pandemic.
To recap: The university declared a fiscal emergency in June, freezing contractual salary increases due July 1, including raises under the Faculty Compensation Program. By then, you had already submitted your materials for the program, and many of you had done the additional work of serving on your departmental Peer Evaluation Committees. Our union challenged the declaration of a fiscal emergency, and we are currently in arbitration over the canceled raises. We still believe all contractual raises should be paid retroactively.
Following the freeze of salaries, the administration said it would not complete the process for determining merit increases, even though evaluations required by faculty PECs and Chairs had largely been completed; deans and higher-level administrators would not be required to do their part to complete the process and determine the amount of awards contractually due. The union filed a grievance over this decision and obtained a settlement that sets forth a timetable for the completion of administrative reviews.
All faculty who were considered for merit awards due July 1 will be able to access and review their recommended merit increases beginning December 23. You will need to log in to the FCP online system using your NetID and password. If you have any trouble accessing the system, please let us know right away. We recommend that you download and save the forms associated with the review.
We understand the demoralizing effect the salary freeze has had, on top of the many challenges we all face today. The union is committed to having the university appropriately prioritize and compensate faculty—and abide by its contractual obligations.
In solidarity,
Todd and Becky
Todd Wolfson, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Rebecca Givan, Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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