For the first time in its 257-year history, Rutgers’ faculty and grad student unions will go on strike

Update: Scenes from campus on day 1 of the strike and everything you need to know about the Rutgers strike

For the first time in Rutgers University’s 257-year history, the unions representing its 9,000 faculty and graduate student workers — virtually its entire teaching force — have called a strike, beginning 9 a.m. Monday.

The decision, which affects all three Rutgers campuses in Newark, Camden and New Brunswick, follows a meeting of union leaders Sunday evening and 10 months of unsuccessful negotiations, including more than two weeks of full-day sessions.

“We intend for this new contract to be transformative, especially for our lowest-paid and most vulnerable members,” Rutgers AAUP-AFT President Rebecca Givan said. “But our proposals to raise graduate workers and adjunct faculty up to a living wage and establish meaningful job security for adjuncts are exactly the ones that the administration has resisted most.”

Union members will be picketing at the three campuses on Monday.

University president Jonathan Holloway said in an email to the Rutgers community on Sunday night that he believes there are “only a few outstanding issues” in negotiations.

“To say that this is deeply disappointing would be an understatement, especially given that just two days ago, both sides agreed in good faith to the appointment of a mediator to help us reach agreements,” Holloway wrote. “We have all been hard at work trying to resolve issues around compensation, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment.”

Union leaders said bargaining sessions continued over the weekend, but little progress was made.

“We were all watching this and saying, ‘Do they want us to strike?’” said Donna Murch, an associate professor of history at Rutgers and president of the faculty union on the New Brunswick campus.

The strike at Rutgers comes as strikes on college campuses have become more frequent, including a 42-day strike by graduate student workers at Temple University that ended last month.

» READ MORE: Rutgers’ unions representing faculty, grad students, and adjuncts pass strike-authorization vote

“We don’t want to be in this position,” said Jim Brown, president of the Rutgers-Camden chapter of the AAUP-AFT union. “We never wanted to have to strike, but we knew that this was a possibility and we organized to prepare for it.”

N.J. Gov. Phil Murphy released a statement Sunday night saying he was calling on the university and union bargaining committees to meet in his office Monday “to have productive dialogue.”

“The world-class educators, students and staff of Rutgers University have my word that these parties will negotiate in good faith to reach an agreement that is fair for all parties,” he said.

The work stoppage is happening at a crucial time in the academic calendar with just three weeks of classes left before exams and commencement on May 14.

The unions represent three groups of employees — adjunct instructors; full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates and counselors; and health science faculty. The health science clinicians will continue to do patient care and critical research, but will not do voluntary work, according to the union.

The union have remained far apart from the administration on salary demands, most acutely those for graduate workers, adjuncts and postdoctoral associates. The unions are is demanding significant upgrades in their salaries, which for too long have been woefully inadequate to live on, Brown said.

That has been a theme around the country, as more undergraduate and graduate student workers at both public and private colleges are forming unions and taking to the picket lines.

They’re also far apart on job security for part-time instructors, and health-care insurance subsidies for both the part-time workers and graduate students.

Murch said it’s due in part to successful strikes at other universities in the region, including Temple, that Rutgers’ academic unions are seeking the level of raises for graduate students and adjuncts they’ve proposed. Recruiting has become difficult, she said, because other universities offer significantly better compensation.

» READ MORE: More student workers are forming unions — and striking — at universities in Philly and beyond

It’s unclear what will happen to classes at the 67,000-student university. On its website, the university has stated that many classes would continue to be held, though it didn’t say how, and directed students to check with their school or instructor or on Canvas or one of its other learning management systems. The site also says commencement and convocation ceremonies will still be held on all campuses.

» READ MORE: Rutgers’ faculty begin strike authorization vote as negotiations stagnate

“Our students’ ability to complete their coursework and earn their degrees is the university’s highest priority,” the university stated.

Just how long the strike will last isn’t known, but the university included its FAQs about the strike that the school may seek an injunction to bring it to a quick ending. Holloway had hinted the same in a message to the campus last month.

“Strikes by public employees are unlawful in New Jersey,” he wrote. “We hope that the courts would not have to be called upon to halt ...an unlawful strike. No one wants that, nor does anyone want faculty or others to go without pay during an illegal strike.”

That statement drew a harsh backlash from Rutgers AAUP-AFT and a letter to Holloway from scholars of labor, social justice, and the Black Freedom Struggle who urged the university not to take such a step.

» READ MORE: First black president for Rutgers University expected to be appointed

“We know that as an expert in African American history, you have thought deeply about how struggles for racial justice have consistently been aligned with the demands for jobs, labor rights, and democracy in the workplace,” they wrote to Holloway, who became Rutgers’ first Black president in July 2020. “At a time when we are experiencing a full frontal assault on critical histories of the American past, academic freedom, tenure, and the right to organize as public-sector workers, we ask you to work with the campus unions toward a just and fair contract.”

Among those signing the letter were Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Marc Lamont Hill, a professor of media studies and urban education at Temple. The unions said more than 1,200 have signed on to the letter.

Murch said if Holloway moves for an injunction, it won’t sit well with faculty.

“People are horrified that he is trying to use the narrative that public sector strikes are illegal,” she said. “Are we in New Jersey or are we in Florida?”

She said she thinks faculty would move to take a no-confidence vote in Holloway if that were to happen. She also pointed out that two of Holloway’s top administrators come from former Gov. Chris Christie’s administration, which was tough on unions. They include David A. Cohen, vice president for university labor relations, and general counsel John J. Hoffman.

The unions have noted that there is no state statute against a strike but courts in New Jersey have ruled in some cases that public employee strikes are unlawful. It’s unclear what would happen if Rutgers sought an injunction or how quickly it could get one, but the unions said they may be able to challenge it under common law or the New Jersey and/or U.S. Constitutions.

“If a union does not comply with a court order to return to work, the employer can go back to court for an order holding the union in contempt of court,” the faculty union said on its website. “At that point a union could face legal penalties if it fails to comply with an order.”

It was a month ago that union members voted to authorize their negotiating teams to call a strike if necessary. The previous contract expired last summer.

The university most recently offered 12% increases for full-time faculty and teaching and graduate assistants by July 1, 2026, (roughly 3% a year) and a 3% lump-sum payment to all faculty union members to be paid over the first two years of the contract. For part-time lecturers and winter and summer term instructors, the university offered an approximate 20% bump in the per-credit salary rate and it has proposed raising the minimum salary for postdoctoral associates and fellows by more than 20% over the contract period.

The union, however, has been seeking 5% annual wage hikes over the four-year contract for full-time faculty, plus more if inflation is higher. It also is pushing to have graduate students paid a living wage. Teaching assistants and graduate assistants covered by the union contract get a minimum salary of $30,162 ($33,999 if their appointment is for the academic year). The union wants to see the minimum raised to $36,000.

Better pay for adjuncts also is a demand. They want pay that’s equivalent to full-time faculty on the non-tenured track teaching faculty, as well as multisemester and multiyear contracts and some job protection so that the administration can’t just cut them at will.

“While there has been some movement on some smaller issues, on our most central issues there is grossly inadequate movement on the part of management,” said Bryan Sacks, vice president and chair of the bargaining committee for the adjunct instructor union, PTLFC-AAUP-AFT.

The two sides have been trying to negotiate a four-year contract that would be retroactive to July 1, 2022, and run through July 1, 2026.