Post-Strike Diary: Wake Up Rutgers
Pickets on Campus and Wake-Ups at the Homes of the Boards of Governor Continue to Demonstrate Our Power
Dozens of picketers were in front of Scott Hall on College Avenue in New Brunswick this morning, making it clear that while the strike has been suspended it has not been ended. The pickets at Scott were part of an active day that began with “wake up calls” at the homes of “governors,” members of the university Board of Governors and the holders of the purse strings at Rutgers University.
Students at the bus stop across from Scott seemed a bit bewildered — classes were taking place, after all, and many probably are not following the nuances of this battle. Some raised their fists in support. Many marched with us today.
At one point, and this is the image or moment that will stay with me, a Verizon van passed on College Avenue. He was repeatedly pounding his horn, his left fist punching out the driver-side window in solidarity. The more he beeped at us and punched, the louder we got. And the louder we got, the more frantic his actions were. This went on for a couple of minutes — he was stopped behind a campus bus — and offered a message, I think.
Our strike is about worker solitary in higher education and across the economy. This fight did not start with us, nor will it end when we have a contract. We remain committed to making changes in the way this university operates — as an employer, as a neighbor, as a player in the larger economy.
Sherry Wolf, our senior organizer, was on Park Avenue in New York — a wake-up for Mark A. Angelson, BoG vice chairman. She described it as “fierce,” adding it was “cheered by nannies, housekeepers and delivery drivers and struck terror in the eyes of patricians and hedge funders out for a jog.”
The wake-ups are part of a week of actions designed to keep up the pressure — and which will include a massive rally and picket outside the Board of Governors meeting at Winants Hall on College Avenue on Thursday.
But first things first: We have a framework on the table, though not a tentative agreement. Our negotiating teams are in New Brunswick sitting down with management trying to put flesh to the bones of the framework, pushing management to address the outstanding issues.
The framework has been in place since early Saturday morning, along with a pause on our strike, but not a pause on our activism. Too many issues remain unresolved for us to let up.
In particular, the AAUP-BHSNJ, which represents 1,300 health care workers and medical faculty, have made little progress in their talks. These are the folks who were treating patients and conducting necessary research during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re asking for basic things that other full-time faculty at Rutgers have, like a parental leave policy so we don’t have use sick time and protection against detenuring,” Catherine Monteleone. AAUP-BHSNJ president said in a union press release. “These aren’t luxuries; these are essential to our members.”
The point is this: We’re not done. I told NBC — in a now-deleted sound bite — that we are not taking any action off the table, including a resumption of the strike. And the Adjunct Faculty Union President Amy Higer said the same thing:
“I don’t think our members would be reluctant to exercise that kind of power again if management doesn’t work with us to complete these agreements,” she said in a statement.
Our Thursday action is meant to remind management of this. It will start at Voorhees Mall at 11:30 a.m. and move to Winants Hall. We will be loud and we expect hundreds to participate — both to make sure that the framework (which coverts full-time faculty, grads, and adjuncts) can be made into contract, but to force management to take the medical faculty union seriously and to show support for the administrators union that is just now undertaking its own strike pledge campaign.