Impasse in AAUP Contract Negotiations

March 11, 2004

Members of the Rutgers Community:

Two weeks ago I wrote to update you on the university’s contract offer to the Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters. Unfortunately, we are no closer to an agreement today. In fact, after 31 meetings over the past 15 months, the university and the union remain apart on many issues, including salary. Therefore, Rutgers will be notifying the state Public Employment Relations Commission that we have reached an impasse in negotiations and are requesting the assistance of a third-party mediator.

The reason for declaring an impasse at this point is that the most recent counter-offer made by the AAUP is significantly costlier than its previous proposal. In other words, rather than moving forward toward an agreement, we are moving backward. The AAUP’s counter-offer is also much costlier than the state package accepted last year by faculty at New Jersey’s public colleges and universities. In addition, Rutgers and the AAUP have made no progress toward agreement on the structure of merit pay, which has long been essential at Rutgers for recognizing faculty excellence in teaching, research, and service.

It is my sincere hope that with the help of a third-party mediator we can quickly reach agreement on these and other unresolved issues and settle a fiscally responsible contract that recognizes and rewards our faculty and graduate students. Some may fear that mediation will drag on for months, but progress at the bargaining table has been so slow that we believe a mediator can help us agree on a contract more quickly than if we were to continue the current negotiations.

Let me restate the offer that the university made to the AAUP. Rutgers has offered the faculty, TAs, and GAs a contract worth about $38 million over four years, including substantial salary raises for individual faculty and TA/GAs. Our offer to the faculty – which is equivalent to the state colleges' contract – calls for a compounded 16.9 percent overall increase in faculty pay, phased in over a four-year contract. The offer is broken down as follows:

Fiscal Year 2003-04: 10% promotion raises, already paid even though we have not come to agreement on the overall contract.
Fiscal Year 2004-05: 3.8%, plus 10% promotion raises.
Fiscal Year 2005-06: 2% July 1 and 2% January 1, plus 10% promotion raises.
Fiscal Year 2006-07: 3.6% July 1 and 3.6% January 1, plus 10% promotion raises.

Half of the increase will come in the form of across-the-board raises, and half in merit-based salary increases in each of the next three years.

Responding to the union's emphasis on increased compensation for graduate and teaching assistants, a goal we share, the university has offered 6-percent across-the-board increases to TAs and GAs for each of the next three years, plus, effective spring 2004, full remission of fees, which currently are about $1,100 per year per student. In addition, we have offered a 10 percent increase per year in the competitiveness pool for TAs and GAs for the next three years. This pool was created in the last contract and is used by deans and graduate program directors to boost salary offers in highly competitive areas, including engineering and the sciences. Our TAs and GAs already receive tuition remission and full employee health benefits. This offer would increase the TA/GA salary base over four years by 19.59 percent. If fee remissions are included, the overall benefit to our TAs and GAs over the length of the contract would be more than 28 percent.

The university has achieved agreement with the Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters in a number of key areas, including release time for union representatives, family and medical leave issues, and grievance procedures for teaching and graduate assistants.

The university is continuing contract negotiations with other Rutgers unions without the assistance of a mediator. These include the AAUP unit that represents part-time lecturers and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents many of our staff members.

Part-Time Lecturers: Rutgers has offered the PTLFC-AAUP, the unit representing our part-time lecturers (PTLs), a three-year contract. The university’s offer would raise the minimum base salary to $865 per credit in the 2004-2005 academic year, and would increase the across-the-board increases for eligible PTLs to $20 per credit. For the 2005-2006 academic year, Rutgers' offer would raise the minimum base salary to $890 per credit, and would increase the across-the-board increases for eligible PTLs to $25 per credit. Departments are free to, and frequently do, compensate their PTLs above the minimum. A significant number of PTLs receive such higher compensation. Since receiving the University's offer outlined above, the PTLFC-AAUP has declined to present any counter-offer other than to restate its original proposal.

Staff: Rutgers has made significant progress in its negotiations with both units of AFSCME at Rutgers – Local 1761 (representing clerical, office, laboratory, and technical staff) and Local 888 (representing service and maintenance workers) – and we hope that contracts will be signed shortly. The university has settled a three-year contract with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)-Primary unit and continues to negotiate with the FOP-Superior Officers Association. We are also determined to provide solid increases to our Administrative and Professional Staff (APS) through the pay-for-performance program.

Progress toward new contracts for our faculty, TAs/GAs, part-time lecturers, and staff has inevitably been constrained by the university’s fiscal limitations – above all by the $61 million shortfall in state support (including base budget cuts and the under-funding of salary increases) over the past three years. Some have said that Rutgers has the financial resources to fully meet union demands based on the higher values of the university’s net assets. However, salary payments require continuous, sustainable revenue sources – realistically this means state appropriations and tuition and fees from our students. Despite our constrained state budget and our concern to limit tuition increases for our students, we will continue to work with the unions toward agreement upon salaries that reward the excellence and commitment of all those who teach and work at Rutgers.

Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey