Robert M. Schwartz has represented unions and employees for more than 20 years. Prior to law school, he organized fellow warehouse workers into the Teamsters Union and led campaigns for rent control in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Schwartz is the author of: Strikes, Picketing and Inside Campaigns; The Legal Rights of Union Stewards; Your Rights on the Job: A Practical Guide to Employment Laws in Massachusetts; How To Win Past Practice Grievances; The FMLA Handbook; and Injured on the Job: A Handbook for Massachusetts Workers.

Robert Schwartz will be leading training on the legal rights of union stewards and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
The training will be held in the Labor Education Center auditorium, 50 Labor Center Way, New Brunswick from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Unions question equality of new savings plans
Posted on 01 December 2009

By Diana Bubser, Opinions Editor and Matt Huston, Nation & World Editor
[...]
Rutgers University, which is not covered under the same contract agreements as other state schools, formed a different strategy and brought on the resistance of union members.

From left, Thurston Mangrum, Patrick Corcoran, Jan Zientek and Reginald Mourning at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in East Orange, N.J. Mr. Zientek has been advising the men on working in the hospital's garden.
By PETER APPLEBOME
Published: November 29, 2009
EAST ORANGE, N.J.

After War, Finding Peace and Calm in a Garden
[...]
It began with Jan Zientek, who specializes in urban gardening with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension in Roseland, and Thurston Mangrum, a 70-year-old Air Force veteran, who was in a substance abuse treatment program at the medical center.

By Brian Whitley/The Star-Ledger
November 30, 2009, 7:28PM

NEW BRUNSWICK -- Rutgers University has settled a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by four groundskeepers, who in 2006 accused the school of denying them promotions and ignoring a noose hung on a campus building.

Authorities arrested 41 students at the University of California at Berkeley Friday, ending the latest building takeover on that campus in a series of protests statewide over cuts to public higher education, layoffs and managements' response to those cuts, the Los Angles Times reported.

November 23, 2009

Photo: Gary Schoichet

Barring a major breakthrough with management, a union representing staff members at the City University of New York Research Foundation is likely to strike Tuesday for the first time in its more than 30-year history, negotiators say.

Graduate and teaching assistants were back leading their classes Nov. 18 as the Graduate Employees' Organization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign called a successful end to a two-day strike. The job action was over just one sticking point—protection of the tuition waiver provision for all bargaining unit members.

[Note: Rutgers Labor Association and the United Students Against Sweatshops participated in this campaign and hosted a delegation of Honduran workers in February. See Rutgers University to cut ties to apparel company accused of inhumane work conditions at http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20090209/NEWS/902090322/Rutgers-University-to-cut-ties-to-apparel-company-accused-of-inhumane-work-conditions from The Home News Tribune of Feb. 4, 2009.

November 18, 2009

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
The anti-sweatshop movement at dozens of American universities, from Georgetown to U.C.L.A., has had plenty of idealism and energy, but not many victories.

Until now.

The often raucous student movement announced on Tuesday that it had achieved its biggest victory by far. Its pressure tactics persuaded one of the nation’s leading sportswear companies, Russell Athletic, to agree to rehire 1,200 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when Russell closed their factory soon after the workers had unionized.

November 17, 2009
As graduate teaching assistants formed picket lines on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus Monday, administrators tried to assuage concerns that the university is maneuvering to end tuition waivers.

In remarks on Nov. 9 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Education Secretary Arne Duncan called for an end to the demonization of teachers and their unions, noting that "we have thousands of terrific schools with union teachers and thousands of underperforming schools without them."

Every year, thousands of Americans witness wrongdoing on the job. What they witness may jeopardize the health, safety or lives of others. They may see managers at a nuclear facility violate a safety code, a chemical company dump hazardous waste unlawfully, or a food processing plant attempt to sell contaminated and dangerous meat to consumers.

11/6/09: To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?

President Obama declared the H1N1 a national emergency due to widespread and rapid growth.

[...]
"We're in favor of having a good program to recruit incoming students," said Lucye Millerand, president of the Union of Rutgers Administrators. "The question is, are we in an austerity period or not?"

Other projects singled out
Millerand said her bargaining unit of almost 2,000 staffers has had wages frozen and 30 layoffs this year. She pointed out that this visitor center was not as "egregious" an expense as the $5 million lounge being built for recruiting football players or the $102 million football stadium expansion. Even so, she said, "Can we have a little more balance here?"