Philadelphia Inquirer: Rutgers administrative workers agree to delay raises
Posted on Fri, Dec. 4, 2009
Rita Giordano, Inquirer Staff Writer
Rutgers University's 2,000 administrative workers have agreed to accept one-year delays of their 2009 and 2010 raises in return for a management pledge of no layoffs.
"Rutgers management asked us to renegotiate the last two years of a four-year deal, citing the poor economic outlook," Bob Cousins, executive director of the Union of Rutgers Administrators-American Federation of Teachers, said in a written statement. "Our members decided that sacrificing money by accepting this deal made sense to save those who might otherwise be laid off."
"The university is grateful to the URA membership for contributing to a budget solution in these extremely difficult fiscal times," said Nancy Winterbauer, Rutgers vice president for university budgeting, in an e-mail statement.
The workers were supposed to get a raise in July, but the university did not pay it, union president Lucye Millerand said yesterday.
Under the agreement, the bargaining unit as a whole will get a 5 percent payroll increase July 1. Individual increases will range up to 7 percent, Millerand said. On June 16, 2011, the unit will get a 4 percent overall pay increase, with individual raises capped at 6 percent.
The union has said Rutgers' upper management has not shouldered its fair share of the fiscal pain.
University spokesman Greg Trevor said yesterday that "no senior administrators will get raises this year." But Millerand said that meant those in upper management "whose compensation package [includes] a heck of a lot more than their salary."
