Following April’s historic weeklong union protest at Rutgers University, the adjunct faculty union says that some of its members did not receive the back pay they were promised during the contract negotiations. The back pay was supposed to be included in paychecks distributed on June 9, according to Amy Higher, the president of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union.
“This disrupts their lives,” Higer said of the lecturers who did not receive the back pay. “They expected this money. They need this money and they deserve this money.” The university said in a statement that its “HR and payroll teams worked through the weekend to identify the affected employees, to understand the processing issues, to assure that any affected employees would see full adjustments in their June 23rd paychecks, and to establish an emergency payment system for any employees for whom this situation created a hardship.”
“We have to fight with them about everything,” Higer said. “If they would just follow through on their commitments, we wouldn’t have to fight. But we’re ready to take action next week if we don’t see that they are doing what they need to do.”
