URA-AFT Unfair Practice Charge

Rutgers has repudiated the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) dated November 18, 2009 by refusing to pay the wage increases MOA requires to take effect for the entire bargaining unit on July 1, 2010, thereby unilaterally modifying the terms and conditions of employment without reaching a negotiated agreement and without even asking URA-AFT to reopen the MOA for modification.

See the full charge at http://www.ura-aft.org/downloads/uraaftulp061610.pdf

The MOA was itself negotiated in response to Rutgers' claim that the economic crisis required it to defer wage increases contained in the collectively negotiated agreement between URA-AFT and Rutgers for the period July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2011. Rutgers obtained the relief it sought in the MOA, which required every member of the bargaining to defer wage increases scheduled for FY 2009-2010 and FY 2010-2011 for a year each. Thus, the wages scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2010 pursuant to the MOA were originally scheduled to go into effect a year earlier on July 1, 2009, and the wages originally scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2010, are deferred by the MOA until June 15, 2011.

In negotiating the MOA, Rutgers specifically represented that it was necessary to meet the budgetary problems it expected for FY 2010-2011 as well as the ones it was facing in FY 2009-2010 when it was negotiated. URA-AFT therefore agreed to a two-year agreement that completely changed the wage schedule for its entire bargaining unit through the expiration date of its current CNA with the express and agreed upon purpose of avoiding any further demands for wage reductions or deferred wage increases other than in negotiations for a successor CNA.

Rutgers never approached URA-AFT with an advance request to negotiate a modification of the MOA and did not even provide URA-AFT with any advance notice of its announcement of its so-called "wage freeze." The Officers of URA-AFT did not learn of the wage freeze until they received an email memorandum addressed to the entire Rutgers Community (attached).

Certifications from Lucye Millerand, President of URA-AFT, and Robert Cousins, Executive Director of URA, in support of this charge and of URA-AFT's application for interim relief are attached.

By refusing to pay the wage increases required by the MOA on July 1, 2010, Rutgers has repudiated the MOA thereby interfering with, restraining and coercing URA and the members of its bargaining unit in the exercise of their rights guaranteed by NJEERA thereby violating N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.4(a)(1) & (5)..

By repudiating the MOA and proceeding without even the slightest effort to open negotiations regarding modification of the MOA with URA-AFT, Rutgers has unilaterally changed the terms and conditions of employment and has refused to negotiate in good faith thereby violating N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.4(a)(1) & (5).