RVCC Faculty Members Rally for New Contract

On the 152nd day without a contract, the teachers’ union at Raritan Valley Community College held a 1960s-style “teach-in” and rally to voice frustration over the lack of progress in negotiations.

From 1 p.m. Tuesday to the beginning of the college’s board of trustees meeting at 6:30 p.m., Chapter 2375 of the American Federation of Teachers presented a program that focused on the history and status of the labor movement in the United States, providing a platform for the union to present its side of the contract stalemate.

Maria DeFillips, a business teacher at the college and president of the union chapter, told the few dozen faculty members, staff and students at the event that teachers at the college rank ninth out of the state’s 19 community colleges in salary and 16th in benefits.

“This is in two of the richest counties in the country,’’ she said.

DeFillips—who wore a t-shirt with “United Mind Workers” on the front and “It’s give and take, not take, take, take, we need a contract”  on the back—said the union acknowledges the state and country are in an “economic crisis,” but does not believe that union should become a “pejorative term.”

“We need shared sacrifice, not hollow offers,” she said.

Andrea Vaccaro, a professor in the communication and languages department, echoed DeFillips’ sentiments. She said it is unfair that she is earning less this year because her salary has remained the same while her contribution to the cost of benefits has increased by 1.5 percent.

“It’s unprofessional not to have a contract,” she said.

According to DeFillips, the college is not offering any increase in salaries this year.

The college has declined to comment on the negotiations.

Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell (D-Bayonne) said that the negotiations between the union and the college are at “ground zero for the labor movement in New Jersey.”

“What kind of New Jersey do we want to live in?” asked O’Donnell, a member of the Assembly’s Labor Committee and a firefighter for 17 years. He added that he found it “galling” that he had been forced to defend the rights of teachers.

O’Donnell decried Gov. Chris Christie’s criticism of the teachers and urged opposition to the governor’s proposals.

“We need to keep fighting,” he said.

Democrats in the state legislature who voted this year for Christie’s package of pension and benefit reforms are not “true Democrats,” O’Donnell said.

The assemblyman also noted that the legislature should pass a proposed income tax on millionaires. He said Christie’s opposition to the tax hike “says to the middleclass, sorry folks, I’m for the rich.”

Marie Corfield, an art teacher in the Flemington-Raritan school district in Hunterdon County who ran unsuccessfully for an Assembly seat in the 16th district, said that teachers have become the easy scapegoats in these difficult economic times.

Corfield, who shot to fame when she challenged Christie at a town hall meeting in Raritan Township, said elementary school teachers are spending too much time teaching students how to take the state’s standardized tests.

“This is what is happening to one of the best educational systems in the country,” she said.

And like O’Donnell, Corfield urged the RVCC teachers to “keep up the good fight.”