A coalition of 19 unions at Rutgers University stepped up the pressure Thursday in urging the administration to halt hundreds of layoffs stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.
Speakers at an afternoon press conference included an employee whose position is among the possible cuts, to a student whose free tuition benefit will end if her mother loses her job.
“I love Rutgers and, right now, I feel so betrayed by my own university,” said Melissa Aldave, a rising junior whose mother works in one of the university’s dining halls.
Union leaders announced Wednesday that Rutgers could lay off about 500 dining, maintenance, custodial and public safety employees, and that the university had given no assurances that another 620 or so dining hall workers typically furloughed during the summer will return to their jobs in the fall.
The unions argue that work-sharing furloughs and other measures could save all of the affected jobs.
A Rutgers spokesperson said the union is in the process of negotiating a furlough program that could avoid layoffs in the custodial, groundskeeping, public safety and maintenance departments.
“With respect to the 10-month food service workers, it is just impossible, at this point, to guarantee the traditional return to work for them because we don’t yet know the status of the dining halls,” spokesperson Dory Devlin, alluding to uncertainty about the resumption of in-person instruction amid the pandemic.
Bryan Cardinale, a chef manager at Livingston Dining Hall, said his daughter is planning to enroll at Rutgers in the fall and that his wife, a cancer survivor, is not working and hasn’t received her state unemployment check in six weeks.
His last scheduled day on the job at Rutgers, where he has worked for eight years, is June 26.
He said he will not be able to afford his daughter’s tuition without the tuition remission program offered to employees.
“My world has been turned upside down," he said.
Todd Wolfson, president of the local union, American Association of University Professors / American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT), which represents full-time faculty and graduate employees, said the layoffs would disproportionately impact Black and brown students
“We are stunned by the callous calculation in these layoffs. Rutgers is choosing to be a part of the problem, not the solution,” Wolfson said.
Rutgers, like other colleges, is facing a substantial revenue loss from the coronavirus pandemic and previously warned it could lose more than $150 million in revenue this spring.
The unions represent 20,000 employees, said Christine O’Connell, president of the Union of Rutgers Administrators/AFT union.
“We collectively recognize the university is facing challenges,” O’Connell said.
“Respectfully, we have asked management to negotiate a humane plan to approach the future. This plan should be humane and do as little harm as possible because collectively we are in this together,” she said.
NJ Advance Media staff writer Adam Clark contributed to this story.
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Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.