By Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
NEW BRUNSWICK — Even if last-minute budget negotiations in Trenton lead to additional higher education funding, Rutgers University’s employees are not going to get their salary increases, campus officials said today as labor unions staged a noisy protest outside the school’s board of governors meeting.
Several hundred Rutgers professors, administrative staff and maintenance workers rallied on the New Brunswick campus to protest the university’s recent announcement that all scheduled raises will be canceled. The salary freeze, announced earlier this month, will help the university deal with a proposed 15 percent cut in state funding.
Union members said Rutgers is reneging on promises made last year when employees agreed to defer their raises to this year. University employees used their lunch hours to protest outside the Rutgers Board of Governors meeting, holding signs reading “A contract is a contract” and “RU broke? … I am.”
“We are calling on the Board of Governors to overturn this short-sighted decision and show a little respect for the people who do the work of the university,” said Lucye Millerand, president of the Union of Rutgers Administrators-American Federation of Teachers, which represents nearly 2,000 campus employees.
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