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The America’s Work Force Union Podcast welcomed Todd Vachon, Executive Council Member of Rutgers American Association of University Professors, American Federation of Teachers, who spoke about the current strike at Rutgers University.
After no progress was made in 10 months of negotiations with Rutgers University, the three major faculty unions, Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and American Association of University Professors Biomedical and Health Sciences of New Jersey (AAUP-BHSNJ), voted in solidarity to approve a strike, he said. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy felt compelled to intervene in the strike and is hosting negotiations for both parties after Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway threaten legal action against the unions.
Vachon estimated there are approximately 9,000 union members on the picket line, which includes full-time professors, adjunct professors, part-time staff, medical students and counselors. In the first three days of the strike, support poured in from local and national unions, including local construction workers who stopped work on the campus as they refused to cross the picket line. The public support has been a morale boost and helped strengthen the resolve of every worker on the picket line, Vachon added.
He explained that the goals of the strike are to improve the lives of part-time staff and professors. Over the last decade, many full-time teaching positions replaced by adjunct professors. Other goals include job security, race and gender equity and a fair salary increase.
Listen to the entire episode to learn more.
America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.
America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.
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