By Donald Gilpin

The first teaching strike in Rutgers University’s 257-year history continued into its second day on Tuesday, April 11 with hundreds of professors, adjunct faculty, graduate workers, and undergraduate students participating in demonstrations on all three of Rutgers’ campuses (New Brunswick, Newark, Camden) in support of faculty unions. 

Leaders of three unions representing about 9,000 Rutgers faculty members declared the strike on Sunday, saying negotiations for new contracts had stalled, particularly on issues of pay increases and on the rights of untenured adjunct faculty members and graduate workers. Contract talks have been going on since July 2022.

The strike is one of the largest faculty walkouts in U.S. higher education history, according to NJ.com, and is expected to disrupt classes for more than 67,000 students on the three campuses.

The three striking unions are the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates, and some counselors; the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, which represents part-time lecturers; and the AAUP-BHSNJ, which represents faculty in the biomedical and health sciences at Rutgers’ medical, dental, nursing, and public health schools.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy met with University and union bargaining committees in his State House office on Monday, and, according to a Rutgers spokesperson, the governor asked Rutgers’ leaders not to take legal action against the striking workers. The legality of the strike is in dispute, with Rutgers claiming that strikes by New Jersey public employees are illegal and the unions contending that there are no laws explicitly outlawing their right to strike.

In an email on Tuesday Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway said that the University had agreed to Murphy’s request not to file a legal injunction against the strike for now, but Holloway insisted that an injunction could be filed in the future if negotiations make no further progress towards resolution.

“Obviously, if there is no movement towards an agreement, we will have no choice but to take legal action to assure the continued academic progress of our students and prevent irreparable harm,” he said, as quoted in the Daily Targum, Rutgers’ student newspaper.

In an April 9 letter to members of the Rutgers community, Holloway expressed his disappointment that the faculty unions were striking and cited progress made in extensive negotiations so far.

“Significant and substantial progress has been made, as I have noted, and I believe that there are only a few outstanding issues,” he wrote. “We will, of course, negotiate for as long as it takes to reach agreements and will not engage in personal attacks or misinformation.”

Holloway went on to note that Rutgers had offered significantly enhanced compensation programs for all levels of faculty, adjuncts, and graduate assistants.

In votes last month, more than 94 percent of union members who cast a ballot voted to empower union leadership to call a strike if necessary to achieve the unions’ goals for a fair contract. Turnout for the vote was about 80 percent.