Wednesday was a huge success! Despite the cold weather, we had a great rally over the lunch hour in front of Fenster Hall, featuring adjuncts, graduate student workers, post-doctoral researchers, and guest union speakers from across the state of New Jersey. Speaker after speaker reiterated their support for UCAN’s efforts at the bargaining table, and our fight for better pay, decent healthcare and professional treatment for all of our members.

Check out our Facebook page and “like” our social media presence to see some pictures of the event!

https://www.facebook.com/ucanaft/

Our efforts paid off. It may not seem like much to attend a lunchtime rally, but the administration was definitely paying attention: NJIT President Joel Bloom even walked through our gathering at one point and saw our growing numbers.

At the bargaining session a short hour later, the administration’s team made movement towards our adjunct wage demands, and accepted the framework of a two-year contract. We are insistent on a two-year collective bargaining agreement, dated to the beginning of this semester, in order to raise adjunct pay as much as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. The administration has also offered to involve the Provost in the next bargaining session, which we look forward to.

While the administration’s increased monetary offer is a positive development, it still doesn’t go far enough. We’re also looking for other areas of improvement in order to achieve what we consider a fair contract.

This week we will be in negotiations over graduate student worker and post-doc conditions, and we have future dates for adjunct bargaining. We’re committed to winning a fair contract that raises up conditions for ALL of our members.

On Thursday, November 16th we’ll be having our UCAN General Membership Meeting for November in the NJIT Campus Center. We urge you to attend with your questions about negotiations and to get involved in our growing new union. We look forward to seeing you there!

Best,
Susan Bristol, Adjunct Instructor, CoAD
Jeffrey Reaves, Adjunct Instructor, NCE
Patrick Nowlan, Executive Director, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Vicky Pacheco, Staff Associate, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Joe Richard, Lead Organizer, Rutgers AAUP-AFT

United Council of Academics at NJIT
191 Central Ave
Newark, NJ 07103