Rutgers University faculty union members plan to remind School leadership the strike is suspended but not ended keeping the pressure on by picketing this morning outside the homes of the members of Board of Governors with another large picket planned for tomorrow in New Brunswick even as negotiations are ongoing with the three unions that went on strike two of them reached a tentative deal over the weekend the State University's health care workers union though has not job security paid family leave and higher wages they're all among the sticking points the movement has been inspiring other higher education facilities in the state worker unions at NJIT in Newark recently sent a letter to the governor about their labor issues and while the unions aren't preparing to strike they tell Ted Goldberg they're also not ruling it out they purposely do not negotiate new contracts with their unions until the old ones have expired I don't understand why they don't negotiate them beforehand because we don't know what we're going to get we don't know if we're going to get a raise adjunct professors grad students and postdoctoral students at NJIT have worked for about nine months without a contract it's very stressful I know people that are afraid to renew their lease because they already cannot afford their rent and they want to find roommates but they have trouble understanding how much they'll be making where they should live we've been trying to negotiate with them in good faith and we put our proposals out last October and they didn't respond to us until a couple of weeks ago and to be honest with you know what they offered us for a raise this current year zero nothing the United Council of academics at NJIT or ucan represents the school's adjunct staff postgrad and post doc students they're watching the events at Rutgers closely ucan's demands subsidized Child Care six months of family leave and a pay bump for postdocs to start at seventy five thousand dollars a year to become a postal can you to study for like eight nine ten years at least and for that now the base seller after that here at njt is 50 000 per year uh for example I'm working in information Theory computer science I.T if if someone just go off the bachelor's and go to the industry you'll immediately get twice of that faculty at Rutgers say they had no choice but to go on strike Folks at NJIT say that's a last resort but it hasn't been ruled out having a strike is very scary especially when the population is uh just like mostly International students for international students that there tends to be this added fear of compromising your status as a student we think we hope that example of Rutgers would make administration of njt more willing to discuss with us because one of the problems was that they just postpone and postpone they don't want to discuss I think the actions taken last week by the group at practice made members and leaders say a we shouldn't be afraid to strike if we need to strike Donna chiera leads the American Federation of teachers New Jersey the parent Union for ucan she says if the state gets involved here the way they did with Rutgers they have to be careful Governor Phil Murphy has committed more State money to help Rutgers without saying where it's coming from and shiera says more Public Schools might ask what about us chiara's solution is to use unused ARP funds if they're not spending the money for what they say they're spending the money for they want the state to stop aft from day one with Governor Murphy felt they needed to have either a Chancellor or commissioner pirate who could who had authority to see what universities are doing otherwise we're all we're going to continue to be in the same path we are today where universities are going to go to Governor Murphy and say we need money in response to our request for comment njit's Chief marketing and Communications officer tells us our goal is to reach a mutually beneficial agreement that addresses as many of their members concerns as possible while assuring that njit's interests and long-term viability also are protected if a deal isn't reached by the start of the Fall that will make almost a full year of working without a contract and an increased possibility that a strike is inevitable in Newark I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music] [Music]