Rutgers-Camden belongs to Rutgers University, statewide coalition of labor unions asserts
By Tara Nurin
A union representing Rowan University’s faculty, adjunct faculty, coaches, and librarians has endorsed a set of recommendations that oppose the school’s proposed merger with Rutgers-Camden. Despite a pledge of neutrality by Rowan’s administration and the union itself, representatives of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 2373 voted to approve a proposal written by a state-wide coalition of labor unions that asserts, “Rutgers-Camden must remain a part of Rutgers University.”
The coalition, formed last year in response to Gov. Chris Christie’s appointment of a task force to study the reorganization of higher education, includes 12 unions that represent all 30,000 public employees at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), Rutgers, and Rowan. A subcommittee within the coalition spent one month writing what it calls its “framework” for restructuring and did not seek approval from the unions’ general membership.
“Some people in our union are worried about it, some people are excited,” Karen Siefring, president of AFT Local 2373, said of the proposed merger. “There was a lot of rancor from some opponents at Rutgers and we didn’t want to engage ourselves in that level of conversation.”
Siefring said she and the approximately five Rowan union colleagues who voted for the framework wanted to ensure Rowan employees would continue to be treated equitably, regardless of the outcome. No one on the union’s executive board complained about the opposition to the merger or its outline for a future Rutgers-Camden.
“We’re still trying to remain neutral. What Rutgers does internally is Rutgers’ business. But when it comes to people’s contractual rights we need to take a stand,” she said.
The framework, which says almost nothing about Rowan itself, seeks to establish a direct appropriation from Trenton to Rutgers-Camden and suggests the creation of a Rutgers-Camden Governing Council (RCGC) that would include members of the Rutgers boards of Trustees and Governors, as well as gubernatorial appointees and others elected by the campus’ faculty, students, and staff.
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