In our Spotlight on Business Report another labor win for a higher education Union in New Jersey members of the UCAN Union at NJIT overwhelmingly voted Tuesday night to ratify their new contract with the school that'll cover adjunct faculty and grad workers as Ted Goldberg reports the group appears to be reaping the rewards of other recent labor contracts fought and won by unions at nearby universities freaking no well go when the results came in they were almost unanimous it speaks to the unity of the union and the unity of purpose and how proud people are of the the things we all won together after about 400 yeses two extensions and zero no votes you can the union representing NJIT grad students post-doctoral students and adjuncts agreed to a new labor contract with the school this is a a transformative contract that's going to make all of our lives a lot easier these workers and students at NJIT will get benefits like pay raises and expanded healthc care starting in about a month continuing over the life of the 2-year contract people tell me horror stories all the time about um uh just just making the rent you know pulling out of their savings I mean these are young people who don't have a lot of savings built up in the first place and uh you know people running up credit card bills that means being able to afford medications being able to afford uh daycare being able to afford the day-to-day life things that my family and my household need so uh it's a literally a Lifeline for me PhD candidate Jose Pabon was worried that he might have to stop working the union overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike in early December and whether it was a tactic or a threat pone says he had long-term concerns about joining a picket line I was absolutely concerned I thought it was a real possibility and unfortunately there are places out there where strike has very serious negative consequences for the members of the union we fought hard we went way into the night and a lot of people wanted to just leave and just give up and we just we was at our last breath Folks at NJIT had been working without a contract for about a year and a half when the strike authorization vote happened you guys scared the hell out of them when they seen that it was strike authorization they knew we were serious and then they immediately came to to the table because they said now it's going get publicity Ruckers just signed the governor stepped in the parallels to Ruckers are no accident Ruckers faculty went on strike for a week last spring and communication never stopped between the faculty at Ruckers and NJIT a lot of our members help Ruckers we went over there to help them strike cuz we know we was on Deck we had a very intentional impact here and a coordination between all of our bargaining table so when we started bargaining this round we had all of our contracts expire at the same time in June of 2022 Patrick Nolan leads one of the Ruckers unions that went on strike our members wanted a good strong contract whether they're at Ruckers or at NJIT and they were willing to take the votes take the steps necessary to make that clear to management at both institutions so that's the result of it whether it was fear concern or just respect for our members in response to the new contract NJIT put out this statement NJ it is very happy to have reached an agreement that has been ratified by ukan membership and we look forward to continuing a positive relationship with all the talented and dedicated employees who serve our students and our University the next Labor contract will be in two years until then three two one uken is popping bottles and celebrating what they call a historic victory in Newark I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News [Music]