To: Rutgers AAUP Media Fax List

Date: February 13, 2004

The attached e-mail message was sent today to every member of the AAUP Bargaining Unit.

Contact Information:
Bob Boikess 732-878-2004
Rudy Bell 732-932-7738 or 732-445-2278

February 13, 2004

Dear Colleague,

At a recent small informal meeting, held at the request of the administration, between a few members of the AAUP Negotiating Team and a few top administrators, Vice President Kavanagh made it very clear that she holds the AAUP and the members of our bargaining unit in contempt.

A few weeks ago we had hopes that we would soon have some good news to report to you about contract negotiations. On January 27, during a formal negotiation session, we were told that the administration believed that an agreement could be reached quickly by moving to an informal, small-group format in which Vice Presidents Kavanagh and Furmanski, and several others would meet with a few members of the AAUP negotiating team. We said we would be pleased to meet as soon as possible.

Very soon thereafter, Vice President Kavanagh called to ask us to tone down the AAUP’s rhetoric. We indicated that we would do so should reasonable proposals for settlement be forthcoming.

When it took the administration two weeks to schedule a meeting, which finally took place on February 10, we began to suspect that their expressed desire for a speedy settlement might not be as strong as that of the AAUP. Our suspicions were more than confirmed at the meeting

Here is the proposal Vice President Kavanagh presented to us:

If the AAUP would be willing to drop all its economic proposals, other than those directly affecting salaries, and if the AAUP would drop all the other proposals it has on the table in such areas as limitations on the numbers of PTL’s and general protections of faculty rights; then the administration would be willing to add a 6% across the board increase in 2006-2007 for TA/GAs to their current proposal.

In the follow up discussion, which was conducted almost entirely by Vice President Kavanagh, it became clear to us that there did not appear to be the slightest interest on her part in finding any kind of common ground.

1. This offer for TA/GAs basically ignores two critically important issues that TA/GAs have clearly articulated: first, some economic help for this year to provide minimally adequate support and second, recognition of the seniority that comes with reappointment as a TA/GA. It also does not address a critically important issue for faculty: our inability to compete with many of our peer institutions now for top graduate students because of inadequate funds for TA/GA offers. Nevertheless, the offer was presented as an essentially take it or leave it offer.

2. Our request for an offer for the faculty, so that we could address in context their demand that we drop all our other proposals was refused. The reason given was that it wasn’t ready, despite the fact that over seven months have passed since the state budget was fully known and the further fact that the AAUP had been led by the administration to believe that at least an overall, general proposal had been prepared, presumably for discussion.

3. AAUP proposals that are on the table and that are designed to improve our ability to compete for the best graduate students and to repair the serious damage already done to graduate student morale were dismissed perfunctorily.

The reasons varied. Among them was a claim that since our TA/GAs do not work as hard as those at other institutions we don’t need to pay them as much. Even more depressing was the assertion that we can’t get competitive in the relatively short time period of this contract. But we also heard that we are competitive, although our request for data to support that idea resulted only in a promise of some data in the future. Even worse, when we asked for their estimates of the costs of proposals they were asking us to drop, we were told that they didn’t know and didn’t care what the actual costs might be, no matter how low.

There is much more, but these few examples should give you the flavor.

Because we are committed to doing what it takes to reach a fair agreement we signaled to the administration that we were willing to try again to meet informally in a small group if they would make a good faith effort to find common ground with us. We are happy to report that a meeting is scheduled for February 24; we are unhappy to report that the administration could not schedule it sooner.

We will try to communicate to you as quickly as we can all developments.

Sincerely,

The AAUP Negotiating Team
Bob Boikess, Chair