Brian Lehrer: Now, listeners, heads up if you are a striking Rutgers professor right now, you're going to be next up on the phone, so get ready to call. Actually, you can start calling 212-433-WNYC, and we're going to get to you in just a couple of minutes. Striking Rutgers professors, day one of that strike, or if you're one of the 70,000 Rutgers students who are affected by this, you can call too. Do you support your striking profs? 212-433-WNYC. Coming up on 11:03, which is time for the latest news today with Michael Hill. Hi, Michael. What's happening?

Michael Hill: The teaching staff, as you were saying, Brian, at Rutgers University is officially on strike. Three faculty unions representing 9,000 professors, part-time lecturers, and graduate workers called a strike last night, marking the first picket line by teachers in the institution's 256-year history. WNYC's Karen Yi has been covering the lead-up to the strike, and she joins us now. Hi, Karen.

Karen Yi: Hey, Michael.

Michael Hill: Karen, I can hear them behind you. What do we know so far about what effect this strike will have on the university?

Karen Yi: That's right. I am now on the New Brunswick Campus, and this was a strike that was announced last night across all three Rutgers campuses, New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden. Essentially they're asking professors, adjuncts, part-time lectures to cancel all of their classes online and in person, stop grading any pre-planned events to cancel them. The biomedical and health sciences faculty is also on strike, but any sort of essential lab work or clinical services will continue,

Professors will still write letters of recommendations to students who ask for them, and the libraries will remain open. Right now, right here in New Brunswick, there's a couple dozen professors and adjuncts, even alumni have joined some of the picket lines. I ran into students earlier this morning who went to class and there was no one there. It was an empty classroom.

Brian Lehrer: Karen, it's Brian. Again, like Michael said, we can hear picketers behind you. Did you get a sense either-- I know you just arrived at New Brunswick, but earlier you were at Rutgers Newark, and I wonder if you got an impression of what percentage of the teachers are actually walking out?

Karen Yi: Yes, I think I was trying to get those numbers, but I haven't yet. Of all three faculty unions that have authorized the strike, you had overwhelming percentages of the members voting to strike 94 and 95%. That being said, the unions are asking their members to cancel classes. I don't know how many of professors have followed through on that. There was one student who was a senior who I talked to, and he said he had class today and he hasn't heard anything from his professor. I ran into some freshmen who had English 101 and they did not have class today and do not have any classes today. You see a really big variety. I spoke to professors in the picketing line who were like, "I should be teaching my physics class right now, and I have two other classes that I've canceled today already."

Brian Lehrer: Interesting.

Karen Yi: It's too early to tell right now.

Brian Lehrer: Again, listeners, if you are one of the striking Rutgers professors, we're going to tag this newscast with a few of your phone calls so you can tell the general public why you're striking. Call us right now and you'll get almost right on, 212-433-WNYC. Then, you can go back to the picket line, I promise. 212-433-9692, or nobody is out there may be available to call because you're all picketing, but if you are, 212-433-WNYC. If you are a striking Rutgers professor right now, 212-433-9692. Karen Yi is still with us. Michael, you have a question for her, right?

Michael Hill: Yes. This school, Karen, as you've been reporting, has been around for 256-plus years, and this is the first time there's been a teacher's work stoppage here. What is the university saying about this strike?

Karen Yi: Well, President Jonathan Holloway sent a university-wide email last night saying he was disappointed. He said that he thought both sides were nearing closer to an agreement and had recently agreed to bring on a mediator to work out some of their differences. What will be interesting to watch is how he will respond. He has threatened in the past last month to use the courts to stop a strike. He maintains that a strike by public employees is illegal and that he will consider using an injunction to stop them and force them to go back to work. That hasn't happened yet. The Rutgers negotiating staff and the unions are set to meet with the governor today at noon, Governor Phil Murphy. He says he wants both sides to work at a fair deal, and so we will see what happens from that. For now, we have 9,000 faculty from grad students to Postdoc Associates to full-time tenured professors on strike today.

Brian Lehrer: Hey, Karen, how did it come to this? What do the unions want?

Karen Yi: Well, at the core of their demands is really better pay and job security for some of their least paid and least-protected members. For lecturers, a lot of lecturers teach core courses, they teach a lot of courses at the university. They have to reapply for their job every semester. They're saying, "Can we work out a system where if we've been here for a few years, maybe we get a year-long contract, we've been here longer, then we can get a multi-year contract." Job security number one. Number two is better pay for some of the graduate researchers and workers. They call it a living wage. Right now, they get about 30,000 for an academic year, they want to push that up to 37,000, and health benefits for some of the lecturers as well. That's really at the core of the demands, which is interesting because you really have a broad range of support right from tenured full-time professors who really have very little to gain individually but are really here on the picket lines for some of their lower-paid colleagues.

Brian Lehrer: Karen, I'm going to play for the listeners the clip from your reporting of Donna Murch, president of the New Brunswick chapter of the Faculty Union. I see you spoke to her before the strike was called, and she said the union tried to emulate what the Chicago Teachers Union did more than 10 years ago organizing around the idea that teachers working conditions are their students' learning conditions. Listen.

Donna Murch: We have to think about how workers can fight for community-based demands. In order to have good schools, you need teachers that are being paid living wages and have security.

Brian Lehrer: Karen, this is the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers. Where does Governor Murphy stand on this?

Karen Yi: Well, he was on Ask Governor Murphy last month and he has urged both sides to come to a deal. I don't know what will come about from this noon meeting, so we'll see. This is generally a pro-labor state. Murphy himself has said he's a pretty pro-labor guy. Again, I think it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the next day or so and if Rutgers actually goes to the courts to stop this.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Michael has one more question for you, I think, but faculty members starting to call in, hang on, as soon as Michael is done with the newscast, right after the weather, which is a wonderfully optimistic weather forecast for anybody on a picket line, then we're going to go to some of you. Michael.

Michael Hill: Karen, when was the last time New Jersey saw university professors go on strike?

Karen Yi: This is an interesting history. The last time was at Union County College in 1990, and you had professors strike there, and just generally talking about public sector strikes in New Jersey, you had the 2018 Jersey City strike where about 4,000 teachers walked out. Then, I was looking at some data which show that higher education strikes generally don't last that long. They last an average of 2.9 days, but that is an average. We will see how long this is an indefinite strike. They're going to be here picketing from 9:00 to 5:00 today, and if they don't reach a deal, again tomorrow.

Michael Hill: That's Karen Yi. She covers New Jersey for WNYC, talking about the Rutgers University, the teaching strike there, the first in the school's 256-year history. Karen, thank you so much. We'll stay tuned for your reporting on this.

Karen Yi: Thanks, Michael.

Michael Hill: Be sure to tune in tomorrow night at 7:00 when Nancy Solomon will ask Governor Murphy about this teaching work stoppage, the first in Rutgers' 256-year history. That's seven o'clock tomorrow night right here on WNYC. Michael Hill, WNYC News.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks, Michael. As promised, we'll hear now from a few of the striking Rutgers professors calling in. Maxi in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Maxi.

Maxi: Hi, Brian. How are you today?

Brian Lehrer: Okay. Tell us about your cause.

Maxi: Yes, well, I'm a PhD student and graduate assistant at Rutgers Newark, and I'm so excited to be standing up today and fighting for our rights. I just wanted to highlight something important to the cause which is that President John Holloway who is a historian in African American history and claims to have these progressive views, he tends to call the Rutgers community his beloved community or a beloved community. We don't feel like a beloved community when we are suffering from not being able to pay our rent, pay our bills, and one of the most expensive places in the nation to live. Students, their education, their learning conditions are a direct result of our working conditions, so we're out there on the pickets today and all week because we want to make Rutgers into the beloved community that Holloway claims that we are, and we think that that power is in our hands.

Brian Lehrer: Throwing the rhetoric of the president of the university system right back at him. Maxi, did I hear correctly that you're not actually a faculty member but the strike extends to your category? Could you explain that.

Maxi: Yes. I'm a graduate student and graduate researcher, we are part of the full-time faculty union, so we're all standing up for the same cause.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to put any numbers on it like what do people in some of those too-low-paid in your opinion positions get and what should they get?

Maxi: Oh, yes. Well, I'll be very transparent with you. I make $30,000 a year. I live in Jersey City. I pay $2,000 rent every month, so you can tell that the numbers don't quite add up there, and I think that with the rate of inflation right now, we're pushing for-- I would say that they've been offering I believe 11.5% raises, but that does not push us up to a livable wage in this city, so we're trying to aim for closer to $40,000.

Brian Lehrer: Maxi, thank you. Good luck out there. Katrina in Maplewood, you're on WNYC. Hi, Katrina.

Katrina: Hi, Brian. I am an adjunct or a part-time lecturer at Rutgers Business School, and I did cancel my class for tonight. I only teach once a week, but I'm formally a full-time non-tenure track professor at Rutgers. I agree in general with the push that the unions are making. Mostly, I am just aligned with the process. I think that collective bargaining and collective action is really, really important for workers, and I actually teach this in my class. I teach ethics, and so I talk about that, and so I feel like I have to make a statement of solidarity and of alignment.

In general, I don't agree with everything that's going on. I have a lot of confidence in the new president of the university and what they're doing. I think it's negotiations among people who are, for the most part, friends, but I think the importance is of allowing the process to work its way through, and I think we'll all end up in a better place. I'm happy to stand along with my colleagues, with the grad students, with the PTLs, and the professors to just really make the point that this is how you advance workers' rights, and that's the most important thing to me.

Brian Lehrer: For you as an adjunct, people often say it's the adjuncts in general who are most exploited by the university system these days because the pay is so low, you don't get to be on faculty, and for the amount of work you put in, the hourly rate is ridiculous. Is that your experience?

Katrina: I don't want to say we're exploited. We kind of know what we're getting into. I have a full-time job working for a humanitarian aid organization, and so I really love being able to do both, so I'm not as affected say financially by the relatively low pay, but I do think that the disparity in pay and benefits between the part-time lecturers as well as the non-tenure track professors who are teaching four classes, that's what I taught when I was full-time, and the tenure track professors who have a lot of other obligations but they teach one or two classes, I think the disparities there are unfair. I think the whole system though really is unfair, and I don't think it's just a matter of one contract negotiation. I do think the university system of tenure and having part-time lecturers and non-tenure track people teach way more classes really, really needs reform. I think that's probably a discussion for another negotiation, but yes, I think all of this is we really do need to relook at the university system in the modern day.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much, Katrina. Donna in New Brunswick, you're on WNYC. Hi, Donna.

Donna: Hello. Can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, we got you.

Donna: Hi. Yes, I'm calling from New Brunswick where I'm a African American history professor, and I've been at Rutgers a long time since 2004. I'm calling in just [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Are you on strike?

Donna: I am on strike. Yes, absolutely. I'm here to go to the rally and to my picket, and I just wanted to talk about how we've gotten to this point. One of the most important things to understand about what's happened over the last three years is that with the global pandemic at Rutgers, we had 5% of our workforce that was laid off at the beginning of the pandemic. People lost their health insurance and they lost their tuition benefits, and so it was in that context of the effects of the pandemic that the unions at Rutgers came together and created and strengthened the coalition of Rutgers unions. It existed going back two decades, but it was really a response to layoffs and the terrible conditions on campus with people not having PPE, which really affected the medical workers, and then a hard line austerity response. That is the longer history of how we've gotten to this point. The other piece is that we all had great hopes about Jonathan Holloway. He's an African American historian. He's actually in my department, 20th century person who's written about Black labor in the 1930s, and so we really thought he was going to be a wonderful [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: He's been a guest on the show in that context. Just saying. Go ahead.

Donna: He has, really, wow. Yes. His first book Confronting the Veil that was about Abram Harris, Oliver Cox, and other Black labor intellectuals who thought class was very important. Needless to say, we're all terribly disappointed. I think at the very top of that disappointment is not only that Jonathan Holloway, he essentially chose as his lead negotiator David Cohen who was the head of labor relations for Chris Christie when he was governor of New Jersey. It's Chris Christie who was notorious in his 2015 presidential run said, " A national teacher's union deserves a punch to the face." By which he meant the American Federation of Teachers who is our parent union, one of them. I think the choice to really have imagine a member of the Chris Christie administration negotiate with the union, Jonathan Holloway [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: That's further alienating and enraging. Just to be accurate, I don't want to overstate how specifically President Holloway was on this show to talk about labor rights. It was about racial justice in general in a book he had written about that, but Donna, thank you very much. I'm going to move on. Stay in touch with us. I want to get one more in here before we run out of time. Aldo on the turnpike on the way to the picket line. You're on WNYC. Aldo, we've got 30 seconds for you. You get the last word in this segment.

Aldo: Absolutely. Hi, I'm a full professor at the New Brunswick Campus. I'm a historian also, a colleague of Donna. I supported the strike, and I am doing this basically to get better pay and better conditions for the people who have been affected. The young faculty by inflation have seen their salary basically cut, the part-timers and the grad student workers that really need a big boost. Also, because I've been very offended by the way that the administration has negotiated, for almost a year basically not negotiated, and started with extremely ridiculous, anybody that knows anything about what's been going on, and the tremendous effort that we did to make Rutgers work during COVID. Both the union piece that Donna talked about, but also the student piece, the extra work that we did to make it function, and a lot of us have felt insulted by the way that the negotiation and the timing and the language [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Aldo, I hear you on all of that, and I have to go because we're out of time, but thank you for your call. Faculty members, there's a lot going on for you today obviously. Thank you those of you who called in, including those of you we couldn't get to for taking some time to share your thoughts and feelings on the air here. We will obviously continue to cover the strike from both sides as long as it goes on. Our reporter Karen Yi is on it, Nancy Solomon will be asking Governor Murphy about it on Ask Governor Murphy this week, and we'll continue to give you voice. Brian Lehrer on WNYC, more to come.

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.