TRENTON — Professors and other staff at several New Jersey public colleges will protest Wednesday as they approach nearly two years without a contract.
The protests will include New Orleans’-style funeral marches on some campuses and a teach-in at Kean University, according to union leaders for the Council of New Jersey State College Locals.
The more than 10,000-member union represents professors, adjunct professors and other professional staff at the state’s four-year public colleges and universities, excluding Rutgers University and New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Union members at the public colleges work under a master contract negotiated with the state and have been without a contract since July 2015. Because of rising health care costs, the college faculty and staff members are bringing home less pay now than they were there five years ago, the union said.
The average full professor at New Jersey colleges made $127,696 in 2015-16, according to new data from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“What I hear from members is that morale is low,” said Nat Bender, communications director for the union.
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