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Rutgers Chapters Reach Contract Agreements
By Gwendolyn Bradley
The AAUP is pleased to report that two units within the Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters (AAUP/American Federation of Teachers) reached agreements with the administration in August. The full-time faculty unit, which includes teaching and graduate assistants, has ratified its new contract, which includes increases in the overall salary base by 25 percent over the next four years, including faculty and teaching assistant/graduate assistant salary increases and a new faculty development fund. The faculty development fund commits the administration to filling one hundred new tenured or tenure-track positions by June 30, 2011. The new contract includes major improvements for graduate employees, who will receive 8 percent salary increases in each year of the contract and fully paid, high quality health insurance. Both faculty and graduate employees of any gender who become biological or adoptive parents will be eligible for eight weeks of paid leave from teaching and service obligations. For birth mothers, these eight weeks are in addition to the previous contract’s six weeks of paid disability leave, resulting in fourteen weeks—an entire semester—of paid leave.
The part-time lecturers’ unit ratified contract agreement that approaches parity with full-time faculty. The agreement increases the overall minimum salary base of most part-time faculty by 25 percent over the next four years and improves salaries by between 2.5 and 3 percent per semester for part-time faculty who are already earning above the minimum. In the third year of the contract, minimum salaries approach parity with the full-time faculty at the rank of assistant instructor.
The administration did not agree to the union’s proposal to contribute to healthcare premiums but agreed to form labor management committee to explore options for health coverage; the committee’s recommendations are to be issued within six months of its initial meeting. Other highlights of the contract include access to recreational facilities for all part-time faculty at all campus locations; increases to the part-time lecturer professional development fund from $5,000 per year to $10,000 per year; strengthened grievance procedure that includes extended timelines to file grievances, guaranteed union representation at meetings, and the elimination of sunset clause for arbitration; and written explanation of nonreappointment decision after four semesters, instead of six.
The contracts expand nondiscrimination protection to reflect changing understandings of gender and sex and cover all part and fulltime faculty regardless of veteran status; civil union or domestic partnership status; family status; and certain medical, physical, and genetic conditions.
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