Rutgers faculty suspends strike after reaching tentative deal

Striking faculty at New Jersey's Rutgers University returned to classrooms Monday after reaching a tentative agreement on a new contract to boost wages and provide other benefits.

On Saturday, the three striking unions representing more than 9,000 faculty members announced they had reached a "framework" agreement with Rutgers administration on new contracts, allowing more than 67,000 students to return to classes. The unions have been on strike since last Monday.

The Rutgers' unions — AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and the Rutgers AAUP-Biomedical and Health Sciences of New Jersey — said the tentative deal includes "major victories" but said there are still "open issues" that have to be resolved before they put the contracts before their membership for a vote.

"We have only suspended the strike, not canceled it," they said in a joint statement. "If we don’t win what we need on these open issues, we can and will continue with the work stoppage."

Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway said the tentative agreement calls for increasing salaries across-the-board for full-time faculty by 14% by July 1, 2025, and boosting the per-credit salary rate for part-time lecturers by 43.8% over the four years of the contract, among other concessions.

He said the deal provides "fair and equitable wages, benefits, and work conditions for our faculty as well as graduate students and part-time lecturers."

“The agreement provides substantial enhancements in wages as well as a commitment to multi-year university support for our teaching assistants and graduate assistants,” Holloway said in a statement.

Gov. Phil Murphy, whose office had intervened to broker a settlement, announced the deal over the weekend and praised mediators and representatives for "hard work" to reach a tentative agreement.

"This fair and amicable conclusion respects the interests of many different stakeholders, upholds New Jersey’s values and puts an end to a standoff that was disruptive to our educators and students alike," he said in a statement.

The union's core demands included increased wages and job security for adjunct professors who now have to renew contracts every semester. Among the demands, they were also pushing for improved health care benefits and higher salaries for graduate student workers from $30,000 annually to $37,000.

The university said the tentative agreement would also increase pay for teaching and graduate assistants. In addition to receiving health care coverage and free tuition and fees, graduate students would see their 10-month salaries increase to $40,000 over the course of the contract, Rutgers said.

Holloway had threatened to file a lawsuit to halt the strike, arguing that state university worker walkouts are "illegal" under recent court rulings dealing with public sector employees. But he backed away from the threats after Murphy intervened in the dispute to help broker an agreement.

The unions argued the state Constitution and recent court rulings are largely "silent" about whether strikes by public-sector workers in New Jersey are legal.