Inside Higher Ed, Sept. 10 - The Price of Wage Concessions

...While the agreement leaves Rutgers AAUP-AFT members largely unscathed, other unions including the Union of Rutgers Administrators-AFT (URA-AFT) and two AFSCME locals representing university employees are still at the bargaining table and face more onerous cuts.

The URA-AFT represents 1,900 administrative employees. Lucye Millerand, its president, said she has been negotiating with Rutgers for more than two months, since “at the very beginning of July we were unilaterally notified that [the university] was not planning to pay any of our raises beginning with that month’s first paycheck.”

She said the URA-AFT “had no discussion” with the university about a delay in the raises before it went into effect. The union has filed a grievance that is on its way to arbitration and continues to negotiate with university officials.

Furmanski said he could not comment on the negotiations, other than to say that Rutgers is “in discussions with all of the other unions at the university” to agree to conditions like those accepted by the faculty.

The URA-AFT hopes for an agreement similar to the AAUP-AFT’s. “Our members, I believe, are receptive to the idea of holding back raises to preserve jobs,” Millerand said. “But we still have members who are getting layoffs notices and then 30 days later they’re gone.”

Nowlan and the AAUP-AFT support the administrative employees’ union’s efforts. “We sense the university is trying to ask for even more from these staff locals,” he said, and “that’s really discouraging because most staff make less than members of the faculty.”

Millerand said her union would also be open to striking a deal like those agreed upon earlier this year by other state unions that include unpaid furloughs. “At least then we get a few days off where we don’t have to pay for child care … and can maybe clean our gutters instead of paying someone to do that.”

Otherwise, she said, "if necessary, we'll protest."

Read full article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/10/rutgers