Simanti Lahiri, Program Coordinator, DICE, Camden Campus
Cathy Brennan, Rutgers Vice President for Financial Planning and Analytics—Chief Budget Officer, gave a presentation to the URA bargaining team on the FY27 budget. This presentation included pages of pie charts showing an overview of how Rutgers management plans on spending their $6.1 billion annual budget. The URA team was able to ask questions throughout the presentation and our takeaway from the presentation was clear: Rutgers has the money!
Jo Nagle brazenly remarked to management that “the corporatization of higher education is alive and well,” setting the tone for our reaction to their claims. “The days of our beloved community are gone,” she said.
Rutgers bragged about having a balanced budget for the first time in years, yet they continue to cry poverty, stating that “labor costs drive the budget.” According to their analysis, staff salaries account for the majority of personnel costs. However, they could not provide us with a breakdown of how much executive, MPSC, and aligned (unionized) positions each factor into those staff salaries. Unsurprisingly, they deflected when we asked about the cost of executive bonuses.
One of Rutgers’ goals is to have a larger “margin” but at the expense of our members. They don’t consider margin as profit or extra. They define margin as the cost of staying operational and how to absorb reality without crisis. While we agree that fiscal responsibility and sustainability is crucial, we were left with many questions and doubts.
Rutgers management is attempting to create a false correllation between our salaries and student tuition. They claim to be cautious about raising tuition and fees stating, that President Tate said, “students have a choice in where they attend.” Rutgers management implies that price is the only factor students consider when choosing where to attend. “Every 1% increase in salary and fringe program requires a 2.3% increase in tuition and fees.” This statement is clearly an attempt to pave the way for offering minimal salary increases during our negotiations in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” While students have the choice where to attend, Rutgers is not considering the hardships on their faculty and staff, as employees also have a choice as to where to apply to work, and Rutgers’ employment retention is a problem as well. In addition, students rely on the services that URA employees provide as part of their overall experience of the university.
Article 19 – Just Cause: Management countered, taking the position that verbal warnings are not considered part of progressive discipline. We introduced the concept of using vacation days in lieu of suspension without pay, a provision that CWA and HPAE have with Rutgers. Management said they were amenable to it.
Article 25 – NE/NL Designation: Management rejected our proposal, which is an attempt on our part to be more consistent with federal regulation.
New Article: Community Service Activities: Management rejected our proposal codifying volunteer practice, despite the benefits for Rutgers and their continued requests for us to volunteer. They used the excuse of not wanting to use university funds for non-university partners. Service to our community partners was not considered by them. We pointed out that many of the requests are for university events such as Rutgers Day, convocation, and commencement.
We ended the day by underscoring how critical their response to information requests are, including a bulk upload of our unit’s CARFs. As it turns out, UHR does not have a database of our CARFs, as they claim it is too labor-intensive to create one. We also highlighted how important our Article 51 – University Closings proposal is to our essential workers as we enter hurricane season and a predicted harsh winter while the University continues to avoid closing, costing essential workers’ overtime pay.
