Dear AAUP-BHSNJ Faculty,

Nursing Strike

As the nursing strike started a couple of weeks ago, we were successful in stopping Rutgers from pushing medical students to “volunteer” to help nurse strike breakers. We remain in support of USW 4-200 and we will continue to show up, stand up and support our USW 4-200 brothers and sisters until a fair and decent contract is obtained. The NJ-AFL-CIO and several legislators recently participated in a rally on behalf of the nurses. “The pandemic clearly illustrated the dedication and resilience of these workers who risked their health to battle COVID on the front lines of patient care” said New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech. “Now, with the pandemic behind us, we see even more clearly how understaffed hospitals are and how this is having a direct adverse impact on patient care and hospital staff” he concluded.

Remember, you have no duty to engage in any additional work because of the strike. Please try to join the picketers if you have a free moment.

Medical School Merger

We remain opposed to the medical school merger. For those of you not following this, on July 10th, the Rutgers Board of Governors voted to merge the medical schools and start the process for petitioning LCME for a single school. It did this despite opposition from faculty, students, residents, legislators, and the University Senate (that had not finished considering the proposal but asked that any vote be postponed.) The University Senate Executive Committee in response to the rushed vote, asked that the merger be paused in light of the Board’s action, and condemned this Board’s action as betrayal of shared governance. The RBHS faculty council is considering its own actions.

Quite remarkably, both medical schools’ deans have called a zoom town hall for August 29th at 5pm. The official purpose is to discuss the new mission statement for a combined school. It is quite ironic that they continue to solicit feedback when it has been overwhelmingly clear that nobody wants this merger.

We are asking members to attend and voice their opinion that any merger should be put on hold. We should not pretend like the Board’s action was legitimate. Other legislators, including Newark Mayor Baraka are not done fighting.

Diomedes Tsitouras
AAUP-BHSNJ (currently AAUP-AFT at Rutgers)
Executive Director
(914) 907-5895 (cell)

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