Daily Targum: Union defers raises with no-layoff pledge

Ariel Nagi, Associate News Editor
Published: Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009, Updated: Monday, Dec.7, 2009

While some members of the Union of Rutgers Administrators-American Federation of Teachers said they could not predict what the economic forecast will look like within the next few years, many agree the employment outlook is not looking good.
That is why the union voted on Nov. 30 to accept an agreement with the University to delay the last two years of its four-year contracted raises in exchange for job security, including a no-layoff pledge, said URA-AFT Spokesman Nat Bender.

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The contract was signed on Wednesday, according to the agreement.
“It is no secret that the state of New Jersey is in a financial crisis,” said URA-AFT Executive Director Bob Cousins via e-mail correspondence. “The state placed conditions on Rutgers that required them to find ways to provide the equivalent financial savings that other New Jersey state employees agreed to earlier this year.”
The no-layoff pledge will protect most union members from layoffs until January 2011, but it will not protect those employees who are grant-funded, Bender said.
“State-funded employees can’t be laid off for the next 13 months, but [if grant-funded employees’] grants run out, they can still be laid off,” he said. “That’s essentially the one provision that speaks to job security.”
Cousins said if the University does layoff an employee in violation of the agreement, the wages that were deferred would be restored, and the employee who was laid off would be placed back to work with full pay.
The agreement also says the grievances filed by the union in the past will be withdrawn.
“The University is grateful to the URA membership for contributing to a budget solution in these extremely difficult fiscal times,” Vice President for University Budgeting Nancy S. Winterbauer said in a Philadelphia Inquirer article.
University Spokesman Greg Trevor said in the article no senior administrators would get raises this year either.
The union has been discussing this type of negotiation since June, because employees did not receive their contracted raises, Bender said.
“In June, it became apparent to us the University wasn’t going to [provide the] contract raises,” he said.
Cousins said the agreement would save a lot of jobs, but only until it expires in January 2011.
“After that, I do not see anything in the current economic situation that would lead me to believe that the economy will be much better than it is today,” he said. “However, if our members would not have reached this agreement, I am sure we would have seen massive layoffs.”
But while the agreement will help save several jobs, Cousins said he is not completely satisfied.
“I am never happy when working men and women have to give up money they were counting on,” he said. “Many of our members have family members who have lost their jobs, and this money was needed.”
Winterbauer said in the Philadelphia Inquirer article that the agreement is similar to those previously reached with the faculty and other large staff unions.
Cousins said members of the union could have not agreed to the negotiations made, but they did and should be recognized for it.
“What all of the unionized employees have done here at Rutgers should be applauded. They have provided millions of dollars in savings for this University,” he said.
After the negotiation and contract expire in 2011, URA-AFT members will have to come up with a new and strengthened contract, said URA-AFT Newark Campus Vice President Darlene Smith.
“Based on the experience and what we accomplished … we would look to strengthen our contract for the next [four years]. We would look to tighten the loop holes,” Smith said.
Anything the University has not done in the past and any issues that were continually faced in the last four years of the contract will determine how the new contract will look, which is in the process of being made, she said.
“We would go forward hoping that the agreements we requested would be honored in the future,” Smith said.
When the recession is over, Cousins hopes the University will grant its unionized employees what they have agreed upon.
“I hope that when this crisis ends, the University remembers the sacrifices their employees just made,” Cousins said. “Only time will tell.”