Home News: Another Rutgers workers union agrees to defer raises
December 1, 2009
SERGIO BICHAO, STAFF WRITER
The union representing 1,900 administrative workers at the state's largest public university has agreed to defer salary increases in exchange for a "no-layoff pledge" through January 2011, union officials announced Tuesday.
The agreement, ratified Monday by the Union of Rutgers Administrators, or URA, avoids furloughs but saves the university $9.5 million over two years, according to Nancy Winterbauer, vice president for university budgeting.
"The university is grateful to the URA membership for contributing to a budget solution in these extremely difficult fiscal times," Winterbauer said in a statement.
"If management follows through and fulfills what is in this agreement, it is a very good thing for Rutgers and for our members," URA President Lucye Millerand said.
The URA this summer had filed a grievance against Rutgers after the university summarily froze salary hikes provided for in collective bargaining agreements.
The university said the freeze was necessary to meet the state's demand that it rein in employee compensation or else lose millions in federal stimulus money controlled by the state.
The agreement between the URA and the university defers this year's 1.5 percent across-the-board raise and 3.5 percent merit raise until July 2010, when the middle management employees will receive a 2.5 percent raise and 2.5 percent merit pay. In 2011, the employees will receive regular and merit raises each totaling 2 percent.
A no-layoff pledge only applies to URA employees not paid through state grants, or 60 percent of the membership.
In August, the university's largest union, the Rutgers Council of American Association of University Professors, representing 5,200 faculty members and assistants, agreed to defer salary raises, spreading a two-year $23.6 million obligation over three years.
But the URA held out, saying the university was asking them for more concessions than from the faculty. Agreements have yet to be reached with other minor unions.
Winterbauer said the URA's deferral is "comparable to the agreements already reached with the faculty and other large staff unions."
The state's public colleges and universities had until yesterday to certify with the state treasury that they had exacted employee savings equal to the savings the state reached earlier this year with a 14-day unpaid furlough for workers and deferring 3.5 percent raises for 18 months.
A treasury spokesman yesterday said the department expected to receive information from all the schools by the end of the day.
Winterbauer said "Rutgers achieved the personnel savings . . . through these wage deferrals and comparable wage deferrals for its non-aligned employees."
Sergio Bichao: 732-565-7256; sbichao@MyCentralJersey.com
-from http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20091201/NEWS/912010346/Another+Rutgers+workers+union+agrees+to+defer+raises#pluckcomments
