By Kelly Heyboer, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
NEWARK — Rutgers University professors will hold a rally on the Newark campus this afternoon as their union steps up its battle for a new contract.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and state Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) are expected to speak at the 5 p.m. rally at the Robeson Campus Center.
The faculty union and university officials have been deadlocked over a new contract for about 7,000 full-time professors, graduate assistants and teaching assistants on the New Brunswick-Piscataway, Newark and Camden campuses.
Though the two sides have reached a tentative deal to raise faculty salary minimums and improve family leave benefits, they have not agreed on changing long-standing contract language that allows Rutgers to back out of giving the faculty raises during difficult financial times.
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