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Rutgers University Faculty Members Strike, Halting Classes and Research

The walkout is the first in the public university’s 257-year history and follows nearly a year of bargaining.

Protesters holding picket signs shout slogans in support of striking faculty.
Protesters rallied in support of striking faculty at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., on Monday.Credit...Andrés Kudacki for The New York Times

Liam Stack and

Three unions representing an estimated 9,000 full- and part-time faculty members at Rutgers University went on strike on Monday for the first time in the school’s 257-year history, bringing classes and research at New Jersey’s flagship public university to a halt.

The strike, which will affect roughly 67,000 students across the state, comes after nearly a year of unsuccessful bargaining between union representatives and university officials. The unions said on Sunday that the two sides remained far apart on several issues, including a pay increase and the rights of untenured adjunct faculty members and graduate workers.

“We intend for this new contract to be transformative, especially for our lowest-paid and most vulnerable members,” Rebecca Givan, the president of one of the unions, Rutgers A.A.U.P.-A.F.T., which represents full-time faculty members, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates and counselors, said in a statement.

Ms. Givan said union proposals that included a significant raise and the promise of job security for adjunct professors were “exactly the ones that the administration has resisted most.”

As workers formed picket lines at Rutgers’s three main campuses in New Brunswick, Newark and Camden, representatives from the university and the unions met in Trenton, the state capital, where Gov. Phil Murphy had invited them to negotiate.

“We feel hopeful about bargaining productively, and we appreciate the governor’s support,” Ms. Givan said in an interview. “We are committed to getting it done, and if necessary we are definitely prepared to stay here until we get it done.”

Dory Devlin, a spokeswoman for the university, expressed similar optimism. She said Rutgers appreciated the governor’s leadership and that they were “hopeful that we can quickly come to a resolution of the remaining outstanding issues.”

The university said on Sunday that it did not expect the strike to interfere with academics. The spring semester ends early next month.

“Notwithstanding the action by the union leadership, the university is committed to ensuring that our more than 67,000 students are unaffected by the strike and may continue their academic progress,” the school said in a statement.

“Our students’ ability to complete their coursework and earn their degrees is the university’s highest priority,” it added. “Every effort will be made to ensure that the strike does not affect our students’ progress toward graduation.”

More than 100 faculty members and students gathered to picket on a street corner outside the university’s main campus in New Brunswick on Monday. Michelle Ling, 24, a graduate student in women, gender and sexuality studies, spoke in defense of graduate workers and adjunct faculty, who she said “both hold this university up.”

Ms. Ling, who earns $30,000 per year teaching at Rutgers on a nine-month contract, said many graduate students who work for the school are forced to juggle multiple jobs or go on public assistance to make ends meet.

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Protesters hold placards at a rally during a strike at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times

“A lot of the grads that I know here are on food stamps,” said Ms. Ling. “A lot of grads I know have secret part-time jobs they don’t report to the university because they have to — they have families, they have responsibilities.”

Ebelia Hernandez, 48, a professor at the graduate school of education, said because she has tenure, she had “the luxury of being out here without the fear of retaliation.”

“There are different levels of respect and status at the university, and adjunct professors are not getting the status that they deserve,” she said. “There are less tenure track positions, they are taking more and more of the teaching work, and they need to be compensated for that.”

The strike was called after 94 percent of union members voted in favor 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.

“The university may go to court to maintain university operations and protect our students, patients and staff from disruptions to their education, clinical care and workplace,” the school said in a statement. “The university may seek an injunction in court to compel a return to normal activities.”

The unions argue that there is no law barring their strike. Rutgers A.A.U.P.-A.F.T. called the university’s position “delusional or mendacious” in a post on Twitter.

The strike quickly gained national attention, with state and federal lawmakers expressing their support. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said on Twitter: “These workers deserve a good contract with fair pay and benefits NOW.”

Representative Frank Pallone Jr., a Democrat who represents the congressional district that includes Rutgers, said at a rally of roughly 300 people on a campus quad on Monday that graduate students and adjunct faculty members “cannot be left behind.”

“The administration calls me all the time to try to get more grants and funding for more research,” he said. “But I always say if that is going to be the case, we need to make sure that the graduate students who are doing the research, teaching the classes, they have to have a fair wage too.”

Ethan Block, a junior at Rutgers who is majoring in political science, said he did not go to class on Monday as an act of solidarity with striking faculty members. (His course is taught by a guest lecturer who is not in the union.)

“I feel like the faculty unions have been treated unfairly, frankly, by the administration,” said Mr. Block. He said he did not plan to attend class on Tuesday either.

“We as the student body have a sort of duty to support the faculty members that are going on strike,” he said. “If they get what they want, then my education will be better, and the educations of every student at Rutgers will be better.”

Lola Fadulu contributed reporting.

Liam Stack is a religion correspondent on the Metro desk, covering New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. He was previously a political reporter based in New York and a Middle East correspondent based in Cairo. More about Liam Stack

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: Faculty Members Strike At Rutgers, Disrupting Classes and Research. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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