Key takeaways:
- 9,000 faculty and staff at Rutgers University are set to strike on Monday morning, making it the first educator strike in the university’s nearly 257-year history.
- Unions are demanding salary increases, improved job security for adjunct faculty and guaranteed funding for graduate students.
- Rutgers University has yet to comment on the strike, but the unions have stated that they are willing to continue negotiations in order to reach a fair agreement.
Rutgers University Faculty and Staff Set to Strike Monday
After nearly a year of negotiations for a fair contract, unions representing 9,000 faculty and staff at Rutgers University are set to strike on Monday morning, making it the first educator strike in the university’s nearly 257-year history.
The three unions, representing faculty and staff, will form picket lines on Rutgers’s three main campuses in New Brunswick, Newark and Camden, New Jersey. The strike is set to impact both full-time and part-time union employees, and is expected to be one of the largest strikes in the history of higher education.
The unions are demanding salary increases, improved job security for adjunct faculty and guaranteed funding for graduate students, among other requests. Michelle O’Malley, a Rutgers masters student, spoke out in support of the strike, saying “Those closest to our learning and to the university’s mission to teaching, research and service deserve more than to merely be surviving and scraping by.”
Rutgers University has yet to comment on the strike, but the unions have stated that they are willing to continue negotiations in order to reach a fair agreement. The strike is set to begin Monday morning, and it is unclear how long it will last.
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