New Jersey Governor, Phil Murphy said on Monday that he will do everything to broker peace between Rutgers University and faculty unions. Murphy is betting that he’ll be able to reach an accord by becoming further intertwined in the dispute and will try his best to avoid taking this matter to the court. This is despite the fact that Rutgers’ rules prohibit workers from work stoppage and are considered illegal.
Murphy said ahead of the strike, on Sunday, that he and his staff were in talks with the labour officials for months now and he is confident that he will reach some consensus with two conflicting parties. On Monday, he called a meeting in his Trenton office to try to resolve the impasse and said he spoke briefly with the two sides at noon.
“I’m not happy that it’s come to this. I am happy that we’re in the room together,” Murphy, speaking after an unrelated event in the Statehouse, said he told those in attendance. “Figure this out ASAP.”
Murphy did not directly answer questions about whether he would allow the state to take legal action to halt the strike, saying only, “I hope it doesn’t come to that.” But a spokesperson for Rutgers said the governor had already told school leaders to hold off on doing so.
The legality of a strike from faculty workers at the state’s public university has been a matter of dispute. Rutgers has maintained that it is illegal for workers to strike. Unions, on the other hand, have insisted that there are no laws explicitly prohibiting their right to strike.
Who is Governor Phil Murphy? A pro-labour Democrat negotiating between Rutgers and faculty unions
Philip Dunton Murphy is serving as the 56th governor of New Jersey, since January 2018. He is a member of the Democratic Party and served as the US ambassador to Germany from 2009 to 2013 under President Barack Obama. Before joining the Democratic Party, he worked at Goldman Sachs, where he held several high-level positions. He is also involved in many civic organisations and philanthropic pursuits.
While planning to run for governor, Murphy and his wife Tammy Murphy launched New Start New Jersey, a progressive organisation active from November 2014 to December 2017, intended to increase his political visibility in the state.
It is known that Phil got into the office of the Governor with the huge support of labour unions and the strike in the state could spoil the legacy of a pro-labour union governor. Murphy himself said on Monday, “I don’t think there’s been a more pro-labour administration in the history of the state”.
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Murphy avoided questions of whether those factors mean he should have been able to deliver an agreement, saying he has “very good relations” with both unions and the school.
Murphy will remain in the office till January 2025 and people are saying that few organisations are likely to miss him more than the state and local teachers’ unions. People in the past have even debated whether Chris Christie’s (preceding governor) policies have been effective and in the public interest.
Why faculty members at Rutgers University went on strike?
Three unions representing an estimated 9000 faculty members at Rutgers University went on strike on Monday for the first time in the school’s 257-year history. The strike brought the classes and research at New Jersey’s flagship public university to a halt.
The strike, which will affect 67,000 students across the state, comes after nearly a year of unsuccessful bargaining between unions and university officials. The unions said on Sunday that the two sides remained far apart on several issues and now have reached a stalemate.
“Rutgers is for education, we are not a corporation,” workers chanted as they carried “on strike” signs.
Rutgers union leaders also said they worked with other unions to ensure workers don’t cross the picket line. Todd Wolfson, general vice president at the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, said construction at the Zimmerli Art Museum at the New Brunswick campus, which was scheduled for today, was blocked to ensure workers did not cross the picket line.
Among several reasons, these are the two major reasons why faculty unions and school workers at Rutgers University went on strike on Monday:
1. The unions are seeking higher wages under ‘enhanced compensation programs’ to increase salaries for dull-time by 12 per cent in two years.
2. They are also demanding a raise in the per-credit salary rate for part-time lecturers and an increased salary for postdoctoral fellows and associates.
The strike was called after 94 per cent of union members voted in favour of it earlier this year, union officials said. But the university has said that it expects all union members to continue working and that it believes a strike by public sector workers is illegal in New Jersey.
(With inputs from agencies)
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