Dear Colleagues,
Late yesterday the AAUP received the administration’s proposal for the upcoming labor negotiations. The thrust of their proposal is that the administration believes the role of faculty in this University ought to be severely diminished and that the only way to return the University to health will be to give the president and senior administration more power.
The opening pages of their proposal are a damning admission of this administration’s failures, including a gross misstatement that the AAUP rejected cost saving proposals which would have prevented Rider’s current financial predicament. Yet they ignore their strategic choices which have bloated expenses and driven down revenues and they place blame on faculty for Rider’s current financial predicament. As it is, seven years of no wage increases, slashed retirement and scholarship support, increased employee contributions for healthcare benefits, and a reduction in our numbers of 20% to date have saved the university in excess of 7 million dollars per year, but they are not enough to offset administration’s gross mismanagement. With this proposal, they are coming for the rest of it.
There is a naked threat to decertify the union, using the precedent set in the Yeshiva decision. This means they want to stop recognizing the union and strip faculty of the right to collectively bargain. Whether that decision would apply is moot, because the New Jersey state constitution explicitly gives us the right to unionize.
Article I, Section 19. Persons in private employment shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively. [https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/constitution]
Further, the administration plans to:
Please do not be under any illusion that the administration has placed on the table anything they do not want as a negotiating tactic. This authoritarian fantasy wish list is exactly what they want. Universities exist to facilitate the relationship between faculty and students, not as a playground for wannabe corporate oligarchs. We faculty will stand strong and united to ensure that we remain at the center of this institution.
The AAUP negotiating team will provide regular updates throughout the summer, once we sit down with the administration. In the event of a potential job action, we will communicate to our members through social media and personal email accounts. If you have not yet provided your personal email and phone number, please fill out this quick Google form at your earliest convenience: https://forms.gle/nAM8HuD2cRgkjqGD6.
AAUP Negotiating Team,
Jeff Halpern, Chief Negotiator
Michael Brogan
Dave Dewberry
Herb Gishlick
Joel Phillips
Art Taylor
Emre Yetgin
Late yesterday the AAUP received the administration’s proposal for the upcoming labor negotiations. The thrust of their proposal is that the administration believes the role of faculty in this University ought to be severely diminished and that the only way to return the University to health will be to give the president and senior administration more power.
The opening pages of their proposal are a damning admission of this administration’s failures, including a gross misstatement that the AAUP rejected cost saving proposals which would have prevented Rider’s current financial predicament. Yet they ignore their strategic choices which have bloated expenses and driven down revenues and they place blame on faculty for Rider’s current financial predicament. As it is, seven years of no wage increases, slashed retirement and scholarship support, increased employee contributions for healthcare benefits, and a reduction in our numbers of 20% to date have saved the university in excess of 7 million dollars per year, but they are not enough to offset administration’s gross mismanagement. With this proposal, they are coming for the rest of it.
There is a naked threat to decertify the union, using the precedent set in the Yeshiva decision. This means they want to stop recognizing the union and strip faculty of the right to collectively bargain. Whether that decision would apply is moot, because the New Jersey state constitution explicitly gives us the right to unionize.
Article I, Section 19. Persons in private employment shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively. [https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/constitution]
Further, the administration plans to:
- Completely eliminate faculty governance
- Increase tenure-track faculty workload to 4/4 and lecturer workload to 5/5
- Eliminate Athletic 3 promotion and connected raise
- Eliminate Assistant Professor II and connected raise
- Force faculty to teach during winter break
- Place total control of P&T in the hands of the president
- Eliminate our current tuition remission benefit and replace it with a ‘tuition exchange’ program which is unsupported at most institutions
- Make draconian cuts in wages
- Further gut health benefits and increase employee contributions
- Devastate or outright eliminate research support
- Decrease secretarial support
- Take advising completely out of faculty control and hand it to administrative staff
- Force faculty to teach online courses and take their office away if they teach online for a semester
Please do not be under any illusion that the administration has placed on the table anything they do not want as a negotiating tactic. This authoritarian fantasy wish list is exactly what they want. Universities exist to facilitate the relationship between faculty and students, not as a playground for wannabe corporate oligarchs. We faculty will stand strong and united to ensure that we remain at the center of this institution.
The AAUP negotiating team will provide regular updates throughout the summer, once we sit down with the administration. In the event of a potential job action, we will communicate to our members through social media and personal email accounts. If you have not yet provided your personal email and phone number, please fill out this quick Google form at your earliest convenience: https://forms.gle/nAM8HuD2cRgkjqGD6.
AAUP Negotiating Team,
Jeff Halpern, Chief Negotiator
Michael Brogan
Dave Dewberry
Herb Gishlick
Joel Phillips
Art Taylor
Emre Yetgin
AAUP's Proposal
| summary_review_of_proposals_aaup2022_v4_10may2022.pdf |
Admin's Proposal
| rider_university_collective_bargaining_negotiations_--_final__2_.pdf |