Letter to Membership Regarding Picket Duty
August 4, 2017
Dear Colleagues,
First we want to thank those of you who have responded to our action committees call for volunteers for picket duty and other potential actions if needed and to urge everyone to sign up for potential action. Secondly, we want to remind you of why we are asking you to do so.
The bargaining unit and its leadership will determine what steps it will take and when in order to force the administration back to the negotiating table or into arbitration if they carry through with their threat to abandon talking with the AAUP after August 31st. Whether that involves informational picketing, demonstrations, teach-ins, work to rule, legal actions, a work stoppage, or all of the above will not be dictated by them but by us. Our goal is to have a fair and balanced Agreement that assures the continuation of Rider as a high quality institution able to recruit and retain top notch faculty and provide our students with a superior education. A quality university cannot exist without a quality faculty. We believe that Rider’s community of students, potential students, parents, alumni, faculty, and staff members recognizes this and understands that investing in a quality faculty is an investment in those who can develop the new programs, perform the cutting edge research, and attract and retain the undergraduate and graduate students the university needs in order to thrive.
So please sign up for picket duty, fill out our survey when you receive it (very soon), and attend the Chapter meeting on August 31st.
August 4, 2017
Dear Colleagues,
First we want to thank those of you who have responded to our action committees call for volunteers for picket duty and other potential actions if needed and to urge everyone to sign up for potential action. Secondly, we want to remind you of why we are asking you to do so.
- President Dell'Omo has repeatedly said that the administration will not continue to talk to the AAUP if there is no Agreement by August 31st. Such a refusal to continue to talk is without precedent in the long history of collective bargaining at Rider. Even in the darkest days of the 1974 strike the AAUP and the administration continued to negotiate. The paramount question then becomes how do we deal with this existential threat to collective bargaining at Rider. How do we bring the administration back to the table if they walk away on August 31st without simply capitulating to their economic demands?
- In the hope of assuring that there is no disruption to the core mission of the institution, we have asked the administration again and again to agree to interest arbitration. They have continually refused to do so, and yesterday the administration's lawyer emphatically stated that "we are not going to turn the future of the University over to a third party." The mask was off and there was no talk of not now but maybe later. It was simply an emphatic no. How do we bring the administration back to the table or agree to arbitration if they walk away on August 31st without simply capitulating to their economic demands?
- The administration is searching for scabs to take our jobs, and we have reason to believe they are prepared to threaten firings after August 31st to any faculty members who do not agree to individually accept their economic demands.
The bargaining unit and its leadership will determine what steps it will take and when in order to force the administration back to the negotiating table or into arbitration if they carry through with their threat to abandon talking with the AAUP after August 31st. Whether that involves informational picketing, demonstrations, teach-ins, work to rule, legal actions, a work stoppage, or all of the above will not be dictated by them but by us. Our goal is to have a fair and balanced Agreement that assures the continuation of Rider as a high quality institution able to recruit and retain top notch faculty and provide our students with a superior education. A quality university cannot exist without a quality faculty. We believe that Rider’s community of students, potential students, parents, alumni, faculty, and staff members recognizes this and understands that investing in a quality faculty is an investment in those who can develop the new programs, perform the cutting edge research, and attract and retain the undergraduate and graduate students the university needs in order to thrive.
So please sign up for picket duty, fill out our survey when you receive it (very soon), and attend the Chapter meeting on August 31st.