Months of intimidation for mid-level administrators seeking to form a union at Rutgers University came to an end on Jan. 26, when Rutgers University president Richard McCormick e-mailed more than 3,000 employees to "clarify the University's position on employees' freedom to choose union representation."

The e-mail was the first public expression of a neutrality agreement reached the night before by the university and the AFT, through the efforts of the New Jersey Department of Labor (on behalf of Gov. Jon Corzine) and with essential assistance from state AFL-CIO president Charles Wowkanech. Pressure also came from numerous members of the Legislature, who wrote stinging letters of rebuke to McCormick for his use of taxpayer dollars to threaten employees and to hire a union-busting consultant.

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Five days after McCormick signed the agreement, Gov. Jon Corzine came to campus to assure the Rutgers staff that he would protect their rights. "People ought to have the ability to make a decision based on the free flow of information, especially on a college campus," he said. "That’s what neutrality agreements are all about." Joining the governor before an audience of more than 200 Rutgers professionals, were Julia Zapcic, director of development for the Rutgers Libraries; Rep. Linda Stender (D-Scotch Plains); AFT vice president William Scheuerman; and Rep. Patrick Diegnan (D-South Plainfield), chair of the Assembly higher education committee.

The Union of Rutgers Administrators-AFT, as the organizing entity of professional staff is called, has been trying to form a union under the state's card-check law since spring 2006. In October, November and December, the university human resources department sent three anti-union e-mails to the employees, which had a "chilling effect," says Nat Bender, an organizing committee member who works for the New Jersey Small Business Development Center at Rutgers. That kind of conduct will stop, promises the president's e-mail: "Rutgers employees should feel free to engage in the process of gaining union representation," he writes. "No member of the Rutgers staff should feel reticent about speaking openly about the union at work or displaying union paraphernalia in an appropriate way."

The neutrality agreement is "a credit to the governor, who rose to the occasion," says Wowkanech, "and to the Assembly Speaker and Senate President, and legislators on both sides of the aisle. It's proof-positive that politics and organizing go hand in hand." [Barbara McKenna]

January 26, 2007