Press releases | American Federation of Teachers New Jersey, AFL-CIO

Outraged Kean faculty and librarians vote ‘No Confidence’ in Trustees

May 15, 2012

Overwhelming 94% agree that guardians of university refuse to check failed leadership

UNION, NJ…University faculty and librarians have overwhelmingly voted no confidence in the Kean University Board of Trustees for their inaction despite multiple ongoing crises that threaten the schools’ academic and athletic programs and financial stability. “We need Trustees who have the independence and integrity to make decisions in the best interests of Kean’s current and future students regardless of political influence,” said Kean Federation of Teachers (KFT) President James Castiglione. “The Trustees are charged to represent the public trust—an important commitment. This vote shows that our faculty and librarians have lost faith in the Trustees’ willingness or ability to perform their basic oversight duties as they have allowed university management to exercise unchecked power and to evade any accountability.”

Outraged Kean faculty and librarians vote ‘No Confidence’ in Trustees

Students, faculty and staff rally for a fair contract at schools throughout state

April 25, 2012

Faculty, librarians, professional staff call on Governor to deliver on higher education promises

UNION…Governor Christie’s promise to increase support for higher education should include fair contracts for workers, according to Donna M. Chiera, President of the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey (AFTNJ), the state’s largest higher education union federation. “The full and part-time faculty, librarians and professional staff of the state’s public colleges and universities want working conditions to keep up with those in private schools,” said Chiera. “True support for higher education means investing in both the structural capacity to house and educate students as well as the working conditions to attract, recruit and retain colleagues who will maintain high standards of excellence.”

The Council of New Jersey State College Locals collectively bargains contracts for faculty, librarians, professional staff and adjunct faculty at all nine state colleges and universities. Lead negotiator College Council President Nick Yovnello, the Assistant Director of Library Services at Rowan University, characterizes discussions as the most difficult in his 40 years of bargaining with the state. “While we are making some progress, the state’s proposals threaten to undermine the basics of working conditions we have established over the past several decades.”

Students, faculty and staff rally for a fair contract at schools throughout state

Rowan plan would weaken workers’ rights and undermine academics

April 06, 2012

Recommendations would damage recruitment and retention efforts

EDISON… Suggesting extreme changes to faculty and staff working conditions is a major component in a report commissioned by Rowan University in anticipation of Governor Christie’s plan to have Rowan University absorb Rutgers-Camden. The report, Establishing the New Rowan University, was made public this week. “How can university management really expect us to become a research university while disrupting long-standing bargaining units, diluting the quality of instruction by expanding the hiring of instructors with limited opportunity for growth and eliminating civil service protections against fraud and patronage?” asked Nick Yovnello, a Rowan librarian and President of the Council of New Jersey State College Locals, which represents faculty and professional staff at the institution.

“It’s disturbing that this secretly commissioned report dismisses all of the anticipated opposition to the takeover by creating various scenarios for effectuating the takeover and it specifically counsels supporters not to address the concerns or questions of the opposition,” said Adrienne Eaton, President of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT. “Once again, we see no details or cost estimates for the takeover, though, for the first time this report makes clear what the Governor has denied, that there will be substantial costs. If a continued attack on the bargaining rights and civil service protections of current Rowan employees is the vision for a New Rowan, then I can’t expect that anyone supports this plan now.”

Prior to the release of the Governor’s task force report on higher education, Rowan University management paid $30,000 to out-of-state advisors to craft the plan suggesting that faculty contracts could possibly be invalidated and long-established bargaining units be forced to re-certify their unions. “Forcing continual re-certification of unions is a practice that distracts workers from advocating for their basic rights and has been used in places like Wisconsin to weaken unions,” said Donna M. Chiera, President of the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey. “Forced re-certification is a tactic advanced by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the conservative group that crafts model legislation which often attacks workers’ rights.” Recent reports tie elementary education legislation advanced by the Governor to ALEC models with word-for-word correlations.

Full press release>>
Establishing the New Rowan University full report

Bergen adjunct professors vote union

March 27, 2012

Join peers at nine other New Jersey community colleges to work for better conditions

EDISON…”Bergen Community College adjuncts have now joined with the many other New Jersey colleges which have had unions for years,” said Sandy Shevack, an adjunct Sociology Professor active in forming a new American Federation of Teachers union. “Together we can promote and protect our professional contributions to education.”

Shevack is one of 678 adjunct professors who will now bargain with the college after a majority of the part-time faculty members agreed to unionize. The next step for the new group is to bargain a contract with Bergen Community College, the state’s largest community college, with 31,000 students.

“The union will give adjuncts at Bergen a much-needed voice on compensation and working conditions, which will allow us to better serve the students of Bergen Community College,” said Ted Arin, a chemistry adjunct in the Physical Sciences Department. Adjuncts at other unionized community colleges have negotiated benefits such as progressively better pay with experience, sick days, paid professional development courses and timely notifications of reappointments since adjuncts’ classes are often cancelled based on enrollment.

Bergen adjunct professors vote union

NJ State Faculty, Prof. Staff and Librarian Union decries Rowan plan to strip civil service and weaken collective bargaining

March 23, 2012

Rowan University’s “Higher Education Reorganization for Southern New Jersey” press release and report issued today included a call for the elimination of civil service on their campus and the elimination of the current Statewide bargaining that Rowan is a part of with the other eight senior State Colleges/Universities. Instead the plan calls for Rowan to conduct local collective bargaining the same as research institutions Rutgers, UMDNJ and NJIT.

Nicholas Yovnello, Council President and Assistant Director of Library Services at Rowan University said, “The plan by the Rowan administration in its current form is a complete betrayal of the longtime excellent working relationship the three unions on the Rowan campus have enjoyed with the Rowan administration. Eliminating civil service on our campus could eventually lead to the same kinds of abuse that have occurred at UMDNJ over the last several years and will undermine the transparency and accountability that currently exists on our campus.”

NJ State Faculty, Prof. Staff and Librarian Union decries Rowan plan to strip civil service and weaken collective bargaining

Coalition calls for open planning process to study higher education realignments

March 23, 2012

Unions critical of Rowan plan position civil service and collective bargaining

EDISON, N.J.—After hedging on details at joint Senate and Assembly Higher Education Committee hearings Monday, a plan distributed today shows Rowan University is looking for an executive order, an undisclosed payment for “transition expenses” and a dramatic shift in labor relations to assume management of what is currently Rutgers Camden. The document, titled “A Plan for the Reorganization of Higher Education in Southern New Jersey” and prepared by Interim President Ali Houshmand’s office, dramatically alters the bargaining process, according to Kathleen Hernandez, Executive Vice President of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1031.

Coalition calls for open planning process to study higher education realignments

Kean local asserts in-house investigation rigged for President

March 15, 2012

Faculty union details lack of scope and objectivity

UNION, NJ…Instead of an impartial comprehensive investigation of allegations of fraud by Kean University President Dawood Farahi, Kean’s Trustees charged counsel to conduct what amounted to a limited review, in the opinion of the faculty union. The result is a report that failed to examine key questions, in the opinion of Kean Federation of Teachers Vice President Charles Kelly, a political science professor. Further, faculty union President James A. Castiglione, criticized the heavy redaction of the document and called on the Trustees to make the investigators’ conclusions public.

More>>

Coalition advocates for planned public process rather than rushed merger

March 08, 2012

Calls for any process to move forward through legislation—not executive reorganization

Newark, N.J. — “We commend Senate and Assembly Higher Education committee members for initiating a process to plan any prospective merger publicly rather than behind closed doors,” said Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE) President Ann Twomey in a crowded public hearing discussing the Governor’s plan Tuesday. Unionized doctors, nurses, professors and staff members from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) and Rutgers joined the call for a transparent process that puts community medical needs and education first, is fiscally responsible statewide and helps build on the existing strengths of Newark and Camden.

More>>

Kean faculty term Farahi retention vote ‘Bogus’

March 05, 2012

Conflict and procedural objections raised in demand Trustees vote again Monday

UNION, NJ…University students, faculty and staff are calling on the Kean University Board of Trustees to vote again on the leadership of President Dawood Farahi after narrowly retaining the controversial President last month. The local is questioning the validity of one vote of one Trustee who is employed by the administration, another whose vote may have been recorded incorrectly and an absent third not afforded the opportunity to call in, which would be enough to change the narrow 7-4-1 vote of confidence in Farahi’s leadership on Feb. 15.

The vote outraged faculty and staff who allege that Farahi falsified his resumes and applications for employment at the university by inventing publications, a deanship, an award and an editorial board position that they believe are fictitious. Student protests were ignited particularly by the Trustee’s claim that the university’s Academic Integrity Policy only applies to students and not to President Farahi, despite plain language to the contrary in the policy.

Student petitions and two campus unions—the Kean Federation of Teachers (KFT), which represents faculty, professional staff and librarians and the International Federation of Professional, Technical Engineers (IFPTE), local 195, which represents approximately 135 janitors, skilled-trades workers and security officers—are calling for the Trustees to remove President Farahi.

More>>

Pressure mounts on Kean Trustees: ‘Farahi Must Go’

February 15, 2012

Staff unions united; students petition for Kean President’s removal

UNION, NJ…University faculty and staff are calling on the Kean University Board of Trustees to remove President Dawood Farahi alleging that he has falsified numerous claims on his resume. After a contentious public meeting last week, students started a petition to remove the President. The membership of the Kean Federation of Teachers (KFT), an American Federation of Teachers local, which represents faculty, librarians and professional staff, voted unanimously to call for President Farahi’s resignation. Another staff union, the International Federation of Professional, Technical Engineers (IFPTE), local 195, which represents approximately 135 janitors, skilled-trades workers and security officers has joined the call to remove President Farahi.
Quoting from the University’s Academic Integrity Policy at last week’s crowded Trustee meeting, junior Ashley Kraus, from Vernon asked of Dr. Farahi, “If we have to abide by it, shouldn’t you?” Students have launched a petition drive calling for the “immediate removal of Dr. Dawood Farahi from his position as President of Kean University.”

Pressure mounts on Kean Trustees: ‘Farahi Must Go’