Rutgers 5094 Bargaining Update Plus Coalition Actions for Real Raises and More!
HPAE 5094 Bargaining Update
Your HPAE 5094 Bargaining Committee met with management on 4/19 for a full-day bargaining session, and exchanged proposals on a variety of issues, including wages, adding Election Day as a holiday, improvements to tuition remission, a cell phone allowance for those required to use their personal mobile phone for work, uniform allowance, expanding the rules around bereavement leave, and others.
The University moved in tiny increments of a quarter of a percent in the third and fourth years — to 3% for all four years of the contract, with one-time bonuses of 1.5% and 0.5% in the first and second years, respectively. Currently, this wage proposal is contingent on the Union withdrawing all other proposals. Rutgers failed to make a counteroffer that comes close to the rate of inflation — currently around 6% and peaking at 9.1% last June — let alone a wage proposal that provides for an increased standard of living, compensates us for the last salary increase during the University’s manufactured fiscal emergency, or considers the fact that many of us worked and continue to work in dangerous conditions do to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic without hazard pay.
Our Union’s bargaining team is holding
strong to our membership’s priorities and proposed wage increases of 6.5% in
the first two years, and 5.25% in the last two years, plus a step movement
(1.8-2.3%) in all four years.
Bargaining has gone for a year. Take management’s proposal as insight into how serious the University is about settling our contract and the contracts of all of our coalition Union siblings, who are all in similar places in their own negotiations.
As a reminder, independent
organizations have described Rutgers as being on its firmest financial footing
in history, having received significant pandemic assistance money.
All the while giving lifetime multimillion dollar contracts to athletics
coaches and paying millions to coaches over the last decade who weren’t even
working at the University any longer. Rutgers makes their priorities clear
with their actions. Apparently, fairly compensating staff is not a priority,
and we can expect that to not change, unless we fight for it.
Your bargaining team needs you: support the URA action on Tuesday in New Brunswick and/or the CIR action on Thursday in Newark (details below). Send in a unity photo with your co-workers, as we continue to show our readiness for further concerted action through public demonstrations of support for our Union. Join an upcoming Solidarity Walk, which meets on Tuesdays in the MSB Courtyard in Newark at 12:15pm Bring your co-workers an upcoming strike education meeting and talk about what’s important to you and what you’re willing to do to win what you want to see in our next agreement. Maybe you’ve heard it before, but it is true; if we want to win the contract we deserve, it is going to take as many of us as possible, fighting for our shared goal as one united voice.
Join the May 11 HPAE Rally for Safe Staffing
There are so many reasons to support the HPAE Rally for Safe Staffing on May 11. Join us there because our colleagues, who are nurses, deserve the resources necessary to deliver care for patients. Show up also for ourselves and our families who at some point may be patients, and our communities because we deserve safe care as a society of human beings. No matter if you are a healthcare worker or not, I urge you to join me at the rally in Trenton and bring a friend, your kids, your neighbor, because safe staffing affects us all.
Free transportation, food provided, join with coworkers and let’s make care safer for all in New Jersey.
Our Campaigns are Connected. Stand United and Win for All. Two Ways to Show Up and Show Unity through Coalition Days of Action Wear Red!
Our Coalition of Rutgers Unions are all still in negotiations and all deserve strong contracts now! HPAE, the faculty, all the staff and clinical teams are still bargaining for strong contracts with Rutgers. As we know, the more we stand united, the more we all can win. This week there are two opportunities to stand with fellow clinical and professional Coalition family. Wear HPAE red and snap a unity pic to share!
Weekly Solidarity Walks in Newark: Build Unity and Get Your Steps In!
Join the Weekly HPAE Solidarity Walks: Wear HPAE Red, build unity in our campaign for a strong contract with Rutgers, and get your steps in! Meet up Tuesdays in the MSB Courtyard in Newark at 12:15pm
Support our counterparts who are members of the Union of Rutgers Administrators (URA/AFT)!
On Tuesday, April 25, at 11:30 am – 1:30 pm, join on your time off, wear your HPAE red and support our Coalition of Rutgers Unions sisters and brothers in URA who will be picketing outside of their bargaining session at ASB II, Rutgers Human Resources, located at 57 Route 1 S in New Brunswick.
Support our fellow healthcare workers, of the Committees of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU)!
On Thursday, April 27, at 5:45 pm – 6:30pm, join on your time off, in the NJMS courtyard near University Hospital in Newark and wear your HPAE red to support our Coalition of Rutgers Unions brothers and sisters in CIR/SEIU as they walk out on a Unity Break to highlight their fight for a strong contract just like us. Healthcare workers’ issues matter in our coordinated campaign to make patient care safer and life better for those who deliver for our patients.
Both URA and CIR are fighting for some of the exact same contract language we are, like the right to remote and flexible work, and cost of living increases that keep pace with inflation. If one of us can win these important gains, we are all more likely to win.
Questions about these actions? Have photos of yourself with coworkers there in support to share? Contact our organizer, Suzanne at SCollado@hpae.org or (917) 588-1634.