Contract Update: Rutgers “Pre-Negotiation” MOA off the Table

On December 19th, we had our fifth bargaining session with management. The first thing management did was inform us that the “pre-negotiations” MOA the Teamsters and others agreed to is now off the table. Rutgers will be moving forward with an RFP for two payroll systems and, according to management, no longer needs to align our bargaining units into one system.

Rutgers continues to state they are not interested in extending tuition remission to employees and have rejected proposals to increase the current tuition reimbursement. Now they are pulling tuition remission for our members’ dependent children off the table as well. HPAE will continue to fight for both of these benefits.

Your bargaining team put together a comprehensive package of mutual withdrawals and proposal modifications centering on benefit time and various Union issues (subcontracting language, paid days for Union Rep training, etc.). After review and discussion management informed us that they would take a hard look at the package, but gave us no immediate response.