Rutgers admits it messed up paying some union members retro pay

🔴 Rutgers payroll of June was supposed to include nearly a year's worth of retroactive pay

🔴 It was part of the settlement that ended Rutgers faculty strike in May

🔴 Rutgers has worked to identity the problem

Rutgers University admits it messed up giving members of the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union backpay as part of their new contract and took steps to help those impacted.

The union in a statement said only a “few” of the 2,700 lecturers received the correct full back pay they were due as part of their new contract agreement. The payroll of June 9 was supposed to include pay retroactive to July 1, 2022 when the previous union contract expired.

“This is an outrageous violation of our contract—especially the threat to not pay some of our lecturers at all for work they’ve already done,” Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union Vice President Bryan Sacks said. “Our members are deeply angered by this. President Jonathan Holloway’s administration needs to commit to paying the retroactive increases to all adjuncts, or they will face protests and possible legal action.”

The union posted an online petition calling for Holloway to come up with the backpay "immediately."

Rutgers University spokesman Kevin Lorincz told New Jersey 101.5 the school acknowledged there was a mistake and said that 1,648 adjunct professors did not get the retroactive pay. Lorincz did not disclose the reason for the payroll error.

"The university’s 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," Lorincz said.

Only 16 affected workers applied for the special payment program, according to Lorincz.

Three faculty unions walked off the job for the first time in Rutgers' 257-year history in April at the New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden campuses as students were finishing their spring semester and preparing for finals and commencement.

The contract was ratified in May by 93% of the 9,000 workers affected by the contract. The agreements include across-the-board raises and additional job security for part-time lecturers, along with significant raises and job security provisions for graduate workers.