HPAE 5094 Rutgers Bargaining Update, September 13, 2018

1. Management owed us 12 responses to proposals with almost a month between sessions and had no agreement or prepared counter-proposals on any of them. They repeatedly stated their General Counsel’s office was still reviewing the language on half a dozen proposals. One of those proposals was presented in April, is only two sentences long, and appears in most union contracts. We stressed that we are already in the third month of the new contract term and that their lack of preparation and unwillingness to negotiate are unacceptable.
2. We withdrew a few of our proposals in the interest of making faster progress in negotiations, including paid leave time for union rep training and changes to our grievance procedure.
3. We proposed language to bring our contract in line with the Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act, which expands our rights to hold union meetings and orient new members, prohibits Rutgers from sharing information on our members to third parties, and incorporates per diem staff previously excluded from union membership.
4. Our debate over job security and seniority continued. We presented a new proposal that would eliminate arbitrary re-assignment to another campus, make it by seniority when there is a need, and reimburse staff for the added mileage.
5. We presented our proposal on wages, including raises in each year of the contract, re-introducing automatic step movement for all staff going forward, and lump sum payments for staff on the top step.

Our next bargaining session dates and locations are September 28thth 9am-1pm (Liberty Plaza, New Brunswick) and October 16th 9am-1pm (Location TBD).

HPAE 5094 Negotiations Committee

Tom Murphy, Alexis Rean-Walker, Mendes Toussaint, Mary Doran, Justin O’Hea, Phil Wilson, Alicia Rivera, Ryan Novosielski, Claude Monken, Antoinette Johnson, Ana Delgado, Fatima Meadows, Vincent Muse, Lisa Adams, Annette Werts & Beverly Fraietta