The following letter of support has been communicated by AAUP/AFT-CCU to the Rutgers University AAUP/AFT. Copies of the letter have been sent to Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway and to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.
Faculty, Teaching Assistants, Graduate Assistants, Postdoctoral Scholars, and all other workers represented by Rutgers AAUP/AFT have been working without a contract for nearly nine months.
The quality of education, research, and public service at Rutgers depends on the quality of working conditions, but these conditions have been impaired by salaries for PTLs and graduate students that have declined significantly when accounting for inflation and rising costs of living. Adjunct faculty receive unfair wages for the classes they teach, and their academic freedom is undermined by lack of job security. Graduate students receive far less than a living wage, which hampers their ability to research, teach, and learn, and threatens the quality and prestige of programs at Rutgers. The loss of department-level authority over course scheduling continues to frustrate their ability to offer an effective curriculum, with no demonstrated benefit to students and demonstrable harm to faculty.
We, Coastal Carolina University’s chapter of the AAUP/AFT, endorse the contract campaign demands at Rutgers, including those for fair salaries and stipends, job security for adjuncts, and departmental control over scheduling. We stand in solidarity with all Rutgers workers seeking a fairer and stronger institution and affirm the right of workers to bargain collectively and to take collective action, including strike action, when necessary to attain just demands.
AAUP-CCU 