HPAE Local 5089 & 5135 Rutgers Bargaining Update, May 22

We met with Rutgers today with the goal of moving our contract to a settlement. We have been diligently working to settle the contract that would merge our two contracts together and create one nursing bargaining unit, as it always should have been.

After working for four hours on a counter proposal to the university that is based off of merging both contracts into one, Rutgers management refused to counter our contract proposals and threatened to end the joint bargaining table and our efforts to merge the contracts.

We fought back and called Rutgers out on this tactic. We only began Registered Nurses bargaining 4/17/19 after the 5135 local did not meet with Rutgers since December 2018. We have put in massive time and effort in each session to merge the contracts and complete our negotiations for our Registered Nurses.

Rutgers continues to push back against incorporating the UCHC nurses into basic contract terms such as Education Differential and Preceptor Pay claiming the wage increases from moving 5135 into the UB should be enough. We disagree and have continued to declare that no nurse should be treated differently than another based on his/her work location.

Rutgers stated this negotiation for the Registered Nurses began because the University finally recognized the UBHC nurses deserve to be treated the same as all other nurses at Rutgers University. We pointed out to the entire Rutgers committee that creating carve outs for one particular group is not treating all nurses the same.

Despite insisting to Rutgers that we wanted a new date for negotiations for our Nurses next week to resume this discussion, they refused to commit and did not give us dates.

We deserve an immediate date to continue our negotiations for one Registered Nurse contract and will not stop until we get it.

In Solidarity,

5089 Bargaining Team: Janice Fitzgerald, Bruno Beja-Umukoro, Jennifer Lerner, Brandy Macko

5135 Bargaining Team: Sabrina Brown-Oliver, Edith Feldman, Marsha Lauriano, Joe Bentivegna, Denise Johnson, Ulric Kelly, Dawn Raabe, Debbie Schaal, Carol Milroy, Lucia Otti, Francine Pasch, Jane Aldershoff, Elizabeth Ilukwe, Itoro (Peace) Ekpo, Lorna Beaumont