Unions and Community Groups to Rally for Education, Research, and Health Care

Ras Baraka and Randi Weingarten Featured Speakers at National Day of Action Event

WHEN: Tuesday, April 8, 4–5 p.m.
WHERE: Military Park (51 Park Place)
CONTACT: Alan Maass, amaass@rutgersaaup.org, 773-322-5418
Ryan Williamson, rwilliamson@aftnj.org

NEWARK—Members of New Jersey education and other unions will be joined by organizations representing the state’s vulnerable communities at a 4 p.m. rally in Newark’s Military Park (51 Park Place) on Tuesday to protest drastic funding cuts for schools at all levels, life-saving research, and health care.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, and American Association of University Professors (AAUP) President Todd Wolfson will be among the speakers at the rally, which is being held as part of a National Day of Action called by the AFT, AAUP, and a coalition of national unions representing higher education workers.

The Trump administration’s devastating cuts at the US Department of Education will cost New Jersey schoolkids over $1 billion in funding for support programs. Funding freezes and grant restrictions at the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies are threatening life-saving biomedical and other research at the state’s public colleges and universities, including Rutgers, one of the world’s leading public research universities. Threatened bans on medical procedures and cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and other programs will cause chaos in New Jersey’s health care system.

Unions and groups organizing the rally say they will also speak out against the Trump administration assault on the state’s immigrant communities and threats against free speech and protests rights for students and others.

“The Trump administration is attacking everywhere, on every issue, all at once, and it’s clear that they won’t be reasoned with or placated by concessions,” said Todd Wolfson, who is also president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents full-time faculty, graduate workers and others at Rutgers.

“We hope this national day of action initiated by higher ed unions contributes to a developing resistance,” Wolfson said. “And we also want to draw attention to what Gov. Murphy and New Jersey lawmakers need to do to protect the people of this state from the federal assault. Trump wants to punish New Jersey and everyone who lives here who doesn’t vote for him. We have to work together to stop that from happening.”

Jessica Hunsdon, a program coordinator at Rutgers and vice president of the Union of Rutgers Administrators (URA), which represents over 2,500 staff administrators who coordinate university departments and support students’ needs, said the federal cuts will have a destructive impact on higher education—and that some staff layoffs are already taking place at Rutgers.

“We need to fight with all we have to keep building spaces of research, learning, and service that focus on the public good,” Hunsdon said. “But the scope of these cuts goes deeper and wider. We are workers who live in communities, and when we lose our jobs through layoffs, it has a ripple effect that extends beyond our workplace and our own families—it impacts our communities. Our strength is in our power to come together across our unions and our communities, and to build solidarity and collective power.”