Rutgers University faculty go on strike for the first time 

April 10, 2023 | Updat­ed 10:29 AM

Thou­sands of fac­ul­ty mem­bers from New Jersey’s Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty went on strike Mon­day, April 10, caus­ing class can­cel­la­tions and pick­et lines. Three fac­ul­ty unions rep­re­sent­ing about 9,000 fac­ul­ty mem­bers at the New Brunswick Uni­ver­si­ty autho­rized the strike after con­tract dis­putes, ACCORDING TO WHO? PIX 11 News?

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“We are fight­ing for bet­ter work con­di­tions for our fac­ul­ty so that stu­dents’ learn­ing con­di­tions can be improved,” Media Stud­ies Pro­fes­sor Deepa Kumar told NBC New York.

Rut­gers said in a state­ment [LINK TO THE STATEMENT] Sun­day night that they were com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that the aca­d­e­m­ic progress of stu­dents was unaf­fect­ed by the strike. 

How­ev­er, by Mon­day morn­ing pick­et lines were being set up through­out Rut­gers’ cam­pus­es in New Brunswick/Piscataway, Newark and Cam­den. Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, most class­es were still being held, while some were can­celed due to the strike. 

In a tweet on Sun­day night, New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Phil Mur­phy invit­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from both the uni­ver­si­ty and union bar­gain­ing com­mit­tees to his office to nego­ti­ate and have a “pro­duc­tive dialogue.”

Nego­ti­a­tions were expect­ed to begin Mon­day after­noon, Rut­gers AAUP-AFT Gen­er­al Vice Pres­i­dent Todd Wolf­son told NPR.

“We feel hope­ful about bar­gain­ing pro­duc­tive­ly, and we appre­ci­ate the governor’s sup­port,” Rebec­ca Givan, pres­i­dent of one of the Unions, told the New York Times.