[music]

Brian Lehrer: Hey, that's not The Brian Lehrer Show theme. No, that's the sounds of picketers on the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers. Today marks day three of the faculty strike at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, educating roughly 67,000 students. Earlier this week, at the start of the strike, as some of you heard, we took calls from workers on strike, a few stepping off the picket line to make their voices heard on the radio. Here's what Maxi, a PhD student and graduate assistant at Rutgers-New Ark, had to say.

Maxi: President Jon Holloway, he tends to call the Rutgers community his beloved community or a beloved community, and we don't feel like a beloved community when we are suffering from not being able to pay our rent, pay our bills in 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. 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.

Brian Lehrer: Caller Maxi from Jersey City on Monday. We'll take more calls from the Rutgers community now. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Rutgers faculty, want to get further into why you are on strike, what demand is most important to you, what's happening on the picket lines. Rutgers students, do you support your striking teachers, even if it means your class time is sacrificed and some of you are trying to graduate in just a few weeks? What actions have you or your classmates taken in support of your professors? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

President Holloway or anyone from the Rutgers University negotiating team on that side, also welcome to call in. 212-433-WNYC. Last night, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy spoke with WNYC's Nancy Solomon, as he does every month on the station, about the strike in this case on Nancy's Ask Governor Murphy call-in. Here's what he had to say about the current state of affairs.

Governor Phil Murphy: Progress, as I say, have been made. It's very complex. There's a lot of wood to chop. I'm an eternal optimist. We're going to keep everybody at the table. I said this publicly and privately, we're going to stay there until we get this done. I can guarantee you we're going deep into the night tonight, and God willing, we get a deal.

Brian Lehrer: With us now to break down the governor's response to the strike as well as update us on how professors, students, administrators are maneuvering through this historic moment is Karen Yi, WNYC reporter covering New Jersey. Hey, Karen, thanks for coming on about this again.

Karen Yi: Hey, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Are they making any progress at the negotiating table? The governor was being, let's say, discrete there.

Karen Yi: I think so. I heard from the unions this morning and from the university, and obviously, we just heard from the governor, that it seems like they are making some progress. One of the union leaders said they've made more progress in the last two days negotiating in Trenton at the State House than they've made in many, many months. I think that's a positive sign. When the strike was called on Monday, Governor Murphy convened both sides and said, "Come negotiate here with my staff." He's been part of the negotiations, dipping in and out. I think there's pressure to reach a deal as today is day three of this historic strike.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a little more of the governor, who says he's taking part in negotiations, on Ask Governor Murphy last night.

Governor Phil Murphy: The room today acknowledged the complexity on both sides. It was actually a room of goodwill, which is encouraging, which you don't always get. Again, I'm mad it came to this, but it has come to this. Let's forget for a moment who shot John and figure out a fair result here that reeks of New Jersey's values, particularly as it relates to the rights of those in unions, and that it's a fair deal for everybody. By the way, the grad students and the adjunct are probably two of the most aggrieved populations in terms of what they get at the moment.

Brian Lehrer: Now, he's the boss because the State of New Jersey owns Rutgers. Seems to be negotiating against his own interests there by that standard. Talk about the last line of what we just heard from the governor, "The grad students and adjuncts are probably the most aggrieved populations in terms of what they get at the moment." Can you give us any specifics on that?

Karen Yi: Right. That is really at the core of the unions' demands. Let's clarify that we're talking about three unions here that are striking collectively. One union represents adjuncts or, how they're called at Rutgers, part-time lecturers, and they teach about 30% of all courses at Rutgers, mostly undergrads, mostly intro courses. Then, we're talking about the faculty union, and these are your full-time professors and your grad workers and researchers that are unionized together. Then, the third union is biomedical staff, faculty in the biomedical schools. What he's talking about is really at the forefront of the demands, which is paying grad workers what the unions call a living wage. Generally, grad workers get about $30,000 in an academic year, and they want to boost that up to about $37,000 so they can afford to live in Middlesex County, they can afford to live in New Jersey, and as inflation has risen. The other demand for adjuncts, what they call part-time lecturers, is equal pay for equal work. What that means is, if you're a part-time lecturer, you get paid per course about $5,000, $6,000 dollars, and they want to boost that to match what a full-time professor would get. If you do a fifth of the work of a full-time professor, you should get a fifth of that pay. That could boost your pay per class to about $10,000.

Then, the other issue for part-time lecturers is basic job security. Right now, it's really hard for these lecturers to plan their year. They have to reapply at the end of every semester.

What I've heard from a lot of lecturers is, "My students will ask me, 'Hey, will you be teaching next semester?'" and they say, "We don't know yet," because they don't know, they have to reapply to see if they can teach in the spring. One part-time lecturer, she mentioned on a public call that she's been at the university for 30 years and has had to reapply 60 times for her job. These are at the heart of what the union is pushing for.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here's a professor at Rutgers. Tracy in Highland Park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tracy.

Tracy: Hi, Brian. I'm really enthusiastic about the support we have from students. I didn't expect-- Remember, these are the COVID students who missed out on prom and missed out on graduation and have spent two years learning online. I think our students have been phenomenally supportive of us.

Brian Lehrer: Are you an adjunct?

Tracy: No, I'm a full-time professor,-

Brian Lehrer: Do the full-time [crosstalk]--

Tracy: -but I'm not tenure track-

Brian Lehrer: You're not tenure track.

Tracy: -so I have to watch what I say. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Right, right, I hear you. I don't know what your real name is.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: What's at stake for someone in your category? Because we just heard about how the adjuncts may be the most taken advantage of and maybe the graduate assistants. How about for full-time faculty, tenure track or no?

Tracy: It's really about cost-of-living increases that match inflation and the university offering us-- and different pathways to tenure, too.

Brian Lehrer: Tracy, thank you. Thank you very much. Good luck out there. Sylvia in New Brunswick, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sylvia.

Sylvia: Hi, how's it going? Thanks for having me on, Brian. I'm a faculty member at Rutgers-New Brunswick, tenured, and I just wanted to say, I'm 100% in support of this strike. The amazing energy that was there just shows the power of how we are united, and we are going to win this. It's really indicative of larger trends in higher education. We have adjuncts, PTLs, and grad workers who are entering job markets in higher ed that are so tight, and there are literally no jobs for the numbers of graduate students. While they're at the university, we are squeezing them for their labor for everything they've got, and they don't have time to work on their research, and then they get out there, and there's no jobs. It's just a never-ending cycle of exploitation at this point. This strike, I just wanted to say, is bigger than us. We are fighting for Rutgers, all three campuses, but this is really indicative of the state of higher ed right now. We're fighting for all of us because those of us who teach and do this work, we love it, that's why we do it.

Brian Lehrer: Sylvia, thank you very much. Here's one of those graduate assistants, I think, calling in right now. Renée in Bayonne, you're on WNYC. Hi, Renée.

Renée: Hi, how are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What's your story?

Renée: I'm a teaching assistant and also a PhD student. I live in Bayonne, which is pretty far from New Brunswick because of the cost of living in New Brunswick. A lot of the students I teach struggle financially, so they've been working really hard in terms of bargaining for the common good on those demands. I see a lot of similarities in my ability to survive and pay my bills to my students who are working so much. So much so that they're leaving my classes a little bit early sometimes to make it to their jobs, or they're telling me that they're working till midnight the night before, and it makes it hard for classes. I think that we're all just kind of fighting for a better living situation for the entire community, and for better education. I work at the School of Education, and I feel like this is top priority, public education.

Brian Lehrer: How does it work in your case? You're a full-time doctoral student, what's considered a full-time student courseload, and you work as a teaching assistant. What is that? Like 20 hours a week?

Renée: Yes, so that's about 20 hours a week, and on top of that, I work two other jobs to try to make ends meet. With that, I'm lucky and I'm working with professors and I'm working on things that I really love, but I also don't get to dedicate as much time to coursework as I would really like to be doing as a full-time PhD student.

Brian Lehrer: Right. You get for that work $30,000 a year plus free tuition?

Renée: Yes, so I get tuition remission. The only thing is that it's not necessarily guaranteed year to year if I get to teach. For example, if I was put on to a fellowship in the following year, I would drop down to 22,000 a year. That's what I was on last year, too, so I feel like I'm slowly accumulating debt trying to live on these wages.

Brian Lehrer Yes. Renée, thank you for telling your story. Karen Yi, our New Jersey reporter covering the strike, is still with us. Karen, you heard those stories. Can you put this in national context at all? Some of our listeners may be wondering, "Why is this going on at Rutgers? I haven't heard about strikes at other state universities." Even though there have been some. What's the national context here?

Karen Yi: Yes, I think generally post-pandemic, you've seen a wave of workers turning to either unionization or to the unions to address some of their working conditions. I think people were laboring so hard and then the pandemic hit, and companies, in many cases, made really simple fixes that addressed people's issues and then took those away post-pandemic, and I think that showing how some fixes can be made and companies were able to make these fixes mobilized a bunch of workers to say, "Hey, can we demand some of these conditions permanently?" You're seeing a large unionization wave across the country, and I think even white-collar professions in media and in higher education, and the strike at Rutgers I think follows a lot of mobilizing we're seeing across the country in other higher education institutions. I think, generally, funding for higher education institutions has decreased over time, and at the same time, you have institutions increasingly relying on adjuncts to fill teaching positions that were previously done by full-time tenured positions. There's just less job security and a cheaper labor force there. If you have more numbers, more adjuncts saying, "Hey, we want more money," there's a lot more power in these numbers.

I think there's something to be said too about maybe a younger generation coming into the workforce, a younger generation that is dealing with higher rent prices, gentrification, inflation, and so some of these issues are a lot more familiar to them. I think one of the callers was talking about the solidarity among the students, and that's something I witnessed too when I was in the picket line earlier this week. Almost half of the crowd is students, and a lot of them were saying, "This isn't my first strike." Some of them are workers at different locations, maybe a Starbucks where they unionized, or other locations where their friends went on strike, so this sort of language, this sort of movement is very, very familiar to younger people.

Brian Lehrer: I want to play one more clip of Governor Murphy talking about how the strike might end with Nancy Solomon last night on the station. First, I'll do our legal ID here at the top of the hour. This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org on the New Jersey side of that equation as we continue to cover the Rutgers strike with our New Jersey correspondent Karen Yi. Take a listen to this exchange between Governor Murphy and Nancy Solomon on her Ask Governor Murphy program last night.

Governor Phil Murphy: The way we get this done is what we're doing right now. We've put people in a room and we've said you're not leaving and we have a deal. I've said that myself to them. I've said it publicly, I'm reiterating it right now, and I said it in that room yesterday, and I said it again in that room today. That's how we get this done, and there's no other way around it.

Nancy Solomon: Governor, can you do something to help Rutgers come to the table and be able to offer more in terms of the state budget and funding for the university?

Governor Phil Murphy: As a general matter? Yes. I don't want to get into the details because we're in the middle of that as we speak, but we are there not just in person and in a convening capacity. We are there in a meaningful, substantive way. I'll leave it at that.

Brian Lehrer: Karen, our colleague Nancy Solomon was getting appropriately specific there with the governor because Rutgers is the state university. These are state workers, and if state workers are going to get raises, which is what they're asking for, then it's going to mean more funding in the budget. How do they figure that out until the actual budget season?

Karen Yi: That was a great question from Nancy, and I think that that's something that is important to note. The governor isn't just overseeing these talks, but he's considering and pretty clearly said yes when she asked him if he was willing to put money on the table because that sort of-- They've been so far apart on the money issue, and I think this maybe can get them a little closer. Fractional pay, this idea of paying adjuncts the same per rate per class as professors is going to cost $20 million. Somebody needs to put that money on the table, and it sounds like maybe the governor is willing to do that. I think the state funding makes up about 20% of Rutgers's budget. I don't know how the process would play out, and of course, he'd have to get approval from the legislature, but that's promising. I think that there might be a new funding stream to help meet some of these demands.

Brian Lehrer: Would they have to raise tuition? If a private business is going to pay their workers more, they might raise their prices.

Karen Yi: That's something the university I think has alluded to and some concerns that I was hearing from students. I don't know where the money would come from. I think it's a matter of how Rutgers is allocating the money that it does have. I think there's been some criticism from students and from the union saying, "Well, your athletic program gets all this money, can you cut us a share to pay our teachers more of that?" That's something that the students were very much aware of and the unions have also made a point of.

Brian Lehrer: How else is the university pushing back? What's their negotiating position? We just heard from an array of strikers calling in. Does the university make an argument that that's too much? That $30,000 plus tuition is maybe fair for a graduate assistant? "Hey, you're getting free tuition. You're getting this free ride. You're just having to pay your living expense." Or anything like that?

Karen Yi: Yes, the university has made some counter-proposals that don't really go as far as matching what the union has demanded. On the graduates researcher piece, they had proposed about, I think, half of what the unions were asking for, so they were asking from 30,000 to 37,000. The university met them halfway on that, but not quite to what the unions were demanding. I think their position-- We've asked President Holloway to come on our air and talk about it. He won't until he says negotiations are concluded. I think that the money has really been the pushback. The other issue that the unions, in my understanding, haven't really achieved any movement on is the healthcare piece. They're also asking for the university to provide healthcare to anyone who teaches at the university after they teach a certain amount of course loads. Right now, adjuncts don't necessarily have that. They can pay into it if they teach a certain amount of courses, but the unions want healthcare to be extended to more people. That's something I don't think there's been some movement, but they're negotiating as we speak, so maybe there's been some movement there today.

The one piece we haven't talked about which I want to bring up is this idea of injunction that the president has mentioned several times in his emails. For now, he said it's off the table. Essentially, President Holloway had said, "In my mind, public sector strikes are illegal. If a strike happens, we might have to use the courts to stop it." Essentially issue an injunction to force teachers to go back to work. For now, he said if there's progress in negotiations, which I feel like there has been progress, that's off the table. That's how they've framed this issue around the strike in the last few days, potentially using the courts and saying that really this isn't allowed under Common Law in New Jersey.

Brian Lehrer: That must tick the faculty and graduate students off.

Karen Yi: Oh yes. When he issued his university-wide email saying this, it ticked off more than just the faculty. We reported this on our air, but there was 40-plus US scholars saying this goes against Holloway's own scholarship, his own writing. He is a Black historian. He has written about labor issues. They were saying, "You are going against what you've written about." It definitely didn't sit well with people beyond the Rutgers community. It seems like he tabled that for now, but again, this is a fluid situation. As we move on day three and potentially more days this week, it depends on how much movement we'll see in the negotiations whether he tables that again.

Brian Lehrer: You're saying it would go against the values he's written about in a book of his to use the court system to shut down a strike?

Karen Yi: Right. I think it would also go against the values of the state and the administration. Governor Murphy yesterday was calling New Jersey the quintessential American labor state, he has said multiple times he is pro-labor, pro-union, and so I don't know how that would play out politically for the president. If he goes to court to get an injunction, a judge could say, "Your strike is illegal," but the unions have said if that happens, we're still going to stay out here. Then, he'd have to go back to court to force some sort of penalty, maybe fines for the unions, or worst-case scenario, arrests. You could play this forward and it doesn't necessarily look good. I think all sides, including the governor, really want to make sure that this resolves itself in a fair contract for all parties [inaudible 00:22:25] [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Let me get one more caller on here. It's Frank who says he's calling from the picket line, and it sounds like you're calling from the picket line, Frank. Hi, you're on WNYC.

Frank: Thanks for taking my call, Brian. It's a pleasure to be with you. Yes, we're out today at the Newark campus. Newark compared to New Brunswick, Newark and Camden received dramatically less pay and funding than the flagship campus in New Brunswick. One of our core union demands, something we bargained about last time we had a contract but wasn't well implemented, was an equity system that would bring the faculty at Camden and Newark, who serve disproportionately low-income, disproportionately students of color, disproportionately immigrant students, to bring them up to the same level of funding that we see at New Brunswick.

Brian Lehrer: You get paid less to teach a course at Rutgers Newark than somebody gets to teach an equivalent course at Rutgers New Brunswick?

Frank: For example, our faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences who teach English composition classes to freshmen make less money at Newark and Camden than do the same faculty teaching that class in New Brunswick, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for calling Frank. Good luck out there. Well, that doesn't seem right, Karen, I'll just say that.

Karen Yi: Yes, and that's something I also learned when I was on the picket lines, that there is this vast difference in the resources that are going to each of these campuses in Newark and in Camden, and from students too. They were saying, "I'm paying all this tuition money. Is more of my tuition going to the New Brunswick campus? How is that fair?" There's a lot of questions about equity even within the campuses and among faculty divided between these campuses. I'm not sure whether the union demands will address that specifically, but it's definitely a concern that you're hearing across the campuses as everyone's starting to talk to each other.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. When you were on with us on Monday, you mentioned that university strikes last on average 2.9 days. Here we are on day three about to exceed 2.9 days. Is there an end in sight?

Karen Yi: Yes, that average is for faculty strikes. The interesting thing about this strike, I'll just say quickly, is that it is faculty combined with grad workers. Grad worker strikes tend to last longer, and so I don't know what the average looks for this combination of all of these groups. In terms of an end in sight, they're back at the negotiating table as of 10:00 AM today. There's been some progress made. I think everyone's hopeful that maybe something will happen this week before we reach week two. Graduations coming up, commencement, finals are coming up. It's still festive and the picket lines are full, but I think everyone's ready to see this come to an end.

Brian Lehrer: Sounded festive in the background there of Frank's call. There's a lot of spirit at the moment, that's to be sure. All right. We will see what happens. Karen Yi, folks, will keep reporting and keeping you abreast of what's happening in the Rutgers strike, our New Jersey correspondent Karen Yi. Karen, thanks a lot.

Karen Yi: Thanks, Brian.

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