Greetings,

By now you should have heard after weeks of uncertainty, it seems at last that our raises are safe!

I've met a good many of you over the last several weeks, as my friends and I kept up the pressure on university administrators by walking office to office, lab to lab, confirming your support for the union. And we were not disappointed! Dozens of you signed for the first time as full members of the union, and hundreds more signed petitions or wrote letters urging Rutgers to deal fairly with faculty and graduate employees.

Thanks to you, university proposals to eliminate pay increases over the next two years have been defeated! Full-time faculty will accept some delays in the implementation of their raises, but by 2011 their base pay will reach levels promised in our contract. Faculty representatives to the union, meanwhile, stood firm in their commitment to preserving raises for graduate employees--raises, as you know, essential to meeting the high cost of living in New Jersey and vitally important to the academic mission of the university as our departments assert graduate opportunities on a competitive par with our peer institutions.

But that's not all! Included in our agreement with the university is a final, fair resolution to long-standing workload grievances filed by Teaching Assistants in the Mason Gross School of the Arts, including thousands of dollars in back pay for each semester a TA was overworked. For the first time in Rutgers union history, graduate employees have demonstrated that strong, enforceable workload language will protect our members from exploitation!

There's never been a better time to get involved!

Strength in numbers... an active membership... increasing visibility and significant victories... certainly we have much to celebrate this summer. But we're just beginning to flex our muscles--and not a moment too soon! You might not know how hard we've pressed, without success, to get even a glimpse of the real budget picture behind the university's threats and pleas of poverty. And you don't need me to tell you that all too often Rutgers budget priorities are out-of-whack, focusing on misguided projects that do nothing to advance the academic mission of the university.

We have a real opportunity here. Can you feel the energy? Can you see our potential when we stand up with one voice to demand justice, fairness, and a meaningful vision for the future?

I can. I feel it every time I walk into a lab to sign three or four new members. I see it in the faces of fresh new volunteers.

I know how much we can accomplish if only we stand together. It'll be a year to remember!

TOGETHER WE ARE STRONGER!
RUTGERS WORKS BECAUSE WE DO!

In unity,
Elric Kline
Chair, TA/GA Steering Committee

Events This Week

Summer Organizing Drive: Meet Wednesday, August 19 at 1pm on the steps of the Food Science Building on Cook Campus.
TA/GA Steering Committee Meeting: Thursday, August 20 at 6pm in the conference room at AAUP-AFT offices, 11 Stone Street in New Brunswick--just two blocks down from the GSL. Help us plan for Orientations, "Know Your Contract" events, monthly parties and more!