The Union Leadership Academy (ULA) is an education-based training program targeted toward union officials, members, and anyone else who may be interested in learning from the course material. The purpose of the program is to enhance the knowledge of our students and create more effective ways to represent the members and their interests/concerns. Each course is designed in a way so that the students will become a conscious competent of the material; therefore, they will be able to present what they have learned to their local, ultimately teaching their members and sharing beneficial information, which they have gained through classes.

URA’s August 16 general membership meeting will mark the beginning of Darlene Smith’s tenure as Executive Vice President of Local 1766. At the same time, Nat Bender will move to the position of Communications Director of the AFT New Jersey State Federation.

Darlene was elected by the Executive Board in July, In compliance with Article V of our local constitution  Darlene has been serving as Vice President for the Newark campus since 2007 and Grievance Committee chair.  She is a triple Rutgers alumna (B.A., J.D, and Union Leadership Academy) with more than over 20 years service at the university.  She was a member of the bargaining team for our 2007-2011 contract, our Memorandum of Agreement and several of our side letters of agreement on Rutgers policy.

Nat Bender will continue in an unsalaried capacity as the URA Communications Director, advising and training members in communication strategy and technology.

Citing potential legal fallout from cultivating a controlled substance, Rutgers management backtracked away from a request to be the state's exclusive pot grower, according to Governor Chris Christie. The snafu left Christie questioning the university's decision-making process, but Rutgers President McCormick has hardly been indecisive in attacking university unions.

Governor Christie has dominated headlines by battling with the large public unions, but McCormick has gone several steps further than the Governor in freezing contracted raises while leveraging the ugly threat of layoffs. During last year’s election, candidate Christie promised to quash 2009 state worker deals that deferred raises to save the state money. Once in office, the new Governor quickly reversed his position in March by admitting “I was wrong” and acknowledging that last year’s deferral deals were legally-binding.

The state made good with its unionized workforce paying raises in July while Rutgers management unilaterally decided to negate agreements modeled on the state deals. In this respect Rutgers management stands alone as the only entity in the state to break last year’s deferral agreements.

Read the full article at Disjointed Rutgers Still Bests Governor in Union Bust
Nat Bender, August 2, 2010

Newark Campus vice president Darlene Smith, College Avenue lead steward Kathy Licinski, health and safety chair Joyce Sagi, AFT president Randi Weingarten and URA treasurer Janice Dilella.
URA leaders met with AFT president Randi Weingarten at the Pride of the Convention reception in Seattle, WA. The reception honored locals for union-building efforts.

Several union activists also attended the meeting, packing the back of Winants Hall on the College Avenue campus with signs like "Jersey Roots, Contract Breach" and chanting "Shame on you!" with each budget resolution passed.

Lucye Millerand, president of the URA-AFT Local 1766, said she believes the contract breach represents an ethics violation for the University and believes the motives for the freeze are more than economic.

"We’ve seen no hard evidence of fiscal exigency; we’ve seen no austerity plan for anything but salaries," she said. "We believe this is a strategic decision to shred collective bargaining at Rutgers [and] convince a demoralized workforce that they serve at the pleasure of management."

"We haven't received anything since 2008," said AFSCME 888 President Mike Holland, a Rutgers carpenter from Manville.

"To us, this (lost raises) means whether our kids have shoes or clothes for school," he said.

Read full article at http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20100715/NEWS/100715048/1004/NEWS0102

NJN ran a segment on the Rutgers rally, featuring AFSCME's Mike Holland leading the march and rally, then telling NJN that after deferring last year's raises the university stiffed workers.

The 11-member board voted unanimously to approve the increases and a $2 billion university budget during a sometimes-raucous meeting before a standing-room-only crowd in Winants Hall. The proceedings were frequently interrupted by members of Rutgers’ labor unions, who were protesting the university’s recent freeze on the salaries of all 13,000 campus employees.

The crowd chanted "Shame on you!" repeatedly after the board voted to approve the budget. Earlier in the day, hundreds of union members held a rally nearby.

"We are absolutely serious in our position that Rutgers management has made an unethical, unfair and foolish decision to repudiate our contracts," said Lucye Millerand, president of the Union of Rutgers Administrators-American Federation of Teachers.

Read the full article at http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/rutgers_university_board_appro.html

As the saying goes, “We are entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts.” Ethical managers share facts. Rutgers management spins myths. Here’s a little myth-busting, courtesy of your local union:

Myth: Furmanski claims that “deferred salary increases negotiated with the unions amount to $30 million”
Reality: The $30 million number combines both years of contracted raises into one fiscal year, and then adds non-negotiated raises for non-unionized employees. It’s bad arithmetic. It is also an unfair labor practice to hold negotiated raises hostage to discretionary raises for management.

Myth: Rutgers cannot afford to pay the deferred raises.
Reality: In meetings with Rutgers unions in 2009, VP Furmanski conceded that Rutgers had enough money in the 2009 budget to pay the originally negotiated raises. He told us that the big problem was 2010. Old Queens has many options for spending their $1.9 billion budget and managing their $1 billion portfolio. For example, Rutgers reported $30 million cash on hand at the end of FY09, after just holding onto our deferred raises. President McCormick could write a check tomorrow to cover all the salary increases, if he wanted to. Each of us in the Rutgers workforce has a story of reckless spending on luxuries that do nothing to serve Rutgers’ core mission.

Myth: VP Furmanski is trying to save jobs.
Reality: All the staff unions who signed MOA’s with Rutgers (URA-AFT, EOF Counselors, AFSCME) gave up raises in exchange for a no-layoff pledge. We tried to extend the no-layoff pledge into 2011, but management refused. VP Furmanski is not extending the no-layoff pledge; he’s only keeping the money.

Myth: There is nothing we can do to get the raises-the University needs the money and has the power to keep it.
Reality: It is not just about the raises. Management is trying to save money any way they can. If we make ourselves a "soft target" by meekly accepting it, they do not have to stop. They can layoff; they can increase our contribution to medical coverage and lower the benefits. They can require fewer people to do more work without limit. Anyone who makes it easy for management to break promises is going to see more broken promises.

See more mythbusters at Myth Versus Reality

Rutgers has repudiated the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) dated November 18, 2009 by refusing to pay the wage increases MOA requires to take effect for the entire bargaining unit on July 1, 2010, thereby unilaterally modifying the terms and conditions of employment without reaching a negotiated agreement and without even asking URA-AFT to reopen the MOA for modification.

See the full charge at http://www.ura-aft.org/downloads/uraaftulp061610.pdf

Thursday, June 24, 2010, 9:53 PM, Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
NEW BRUNSWICK — Rutgers University and its employee unions are headed to Trenton for a showdown over the school’s decision to freeze all employees’ salaries to help close its budget gap.

The Public Employment Relations Commission today ordered the two sides to face off at hearing on July 7.

Several Rutgers unions, including the group representing campus professors, filed charges accusing the state university of unfair labor practices for denying employees their scheduled raises. The unions asked the commission, the state agency that mediates public employee disputes, for an expedited hearing.

"Short of honoring the original agreements, expedited arbitration is the most efficient way to vindicate the workers’ rights," said Bennet Zurofsky, an attorney representing the Union of Rutgers Administrators-American Federation of Teachers.

Daily Targum, By Chris Zawistowski, Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, June 23, 2010

With more than 250 protesters chanting “Open the doors! Open the books!” outside Winants Hall on the College Avenue campus, the University’s Board of Governors met Wednesday for their annual reorganizational meeting.

Protesters representing the University’s three major labor unions rallied against the recent decision to cancel pay raises and freeze the salaries of their 13,000 system-wide employees.

Lucye Millerand, Union of Rutgers Administrators–American Federation of Teachers president, said the wage freeze breaks an agreement brokered last year for more than 10,000 unionized staff and faculty who agreed to defer their 2009 contract raises.

“I don’t think that this is really about the money,” Millerand said. “I think this is Old Queens [wanting] to maximize their freedom to treat employees as they see fit and to just instill fear, uncertainty and doubt, and I don’t think that’s an effective way to motivate people.”

See photos.

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Rutgers University employees protest holds on pay raises Tuesday, June 22, 2010