这课没法上了！ 美国大学教师为何罢工罢课？

Unions representing an estimated 9,000 faculty members at Rutgers University suspended a nearly weeklong strike early Saturday morning after reaching a consensus with the university on critical provisions, including a significant pay raise for adjunct professors. A union official called the progress a “huge win.”

新合同达成的协议包括：

1、工资最低的兼职教师可以在四年内获得接近14%的加薪。

2、兼职研究生可以获得四年内加薪33%的机会，届时年薪将达到4万美元。并且，校方承诺资助2024年开始攻读博士学位的研究生们进行五年的研究。

3、非终身教职兼职教师的合同将默认为续签状态，合同期也延长了。他们不再需要每学期重新签订合同。

4、医学院的教职工签订了产假和终身执教的合同，工会表示，这将使他们有更多时间教学和研究，而不是一直在照顾病人。

5、兼职研究生们将被重新分类为教学助理和研究生助理，并有资格享受这些职位的福利。

6、因新冠疫情而中断工作的研究人员可以延长一年来完成工作。

A growing number of campus strikes nationwide are driven by faculty, part-timers and graduate employees recognizing that they share common labor interests with other employees and other occupations for well paid jobs, good benefits and job security, she said.

Their core demands included equal pay for the lowest-paid part-time lecturers with wages calculated based on the salaries of full-time, non tenured professors. They also sought raises for graduate assistants from their $30,000 annual salary to a “living wage” that can meet New Jersey’s high cost of living and current inflation. 

与大多数美国大学一样，罗格斯大学以私立公司的形式运作。通常一些校内的高级管理人员和体育教练们，都能获得百万美元上下的高额薪酬，而成千上万收入微薄的教育工作者和教职员工却得不到工作保障和福利。

兼职教师和研究生经常兼职在其他大学任教，当司机、当收银员、当外卖员……他们五六个人挤在一个公寓里，或者睡朋友家的沙发上。这种价值观的倒置正在摧毁美国的教育体系。

公共资金不再资助大学，大学正在被公司和超级富豪们所收购，这是缓慢的公司政变的一部分。他们的目标是强制使年轻人服从，训练他们累来填补公司机器中的空缺，并使他们对自身现状毫无质疑。

但是，那些塑造人格、启明心智的人被忽视了。与大多数大学一样，罗格斯大学将资源投入到科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)这些“美国企业”重视的领域。教育的基本目标是教会人们如何批判性地思考，掌握和理解支配我们生活的能力，促进共同利益，构建有意义和目标的生活，但是随着人文学科的消亡，这些目标都被边缘化了。

Those who mold, shape, inspire and educate the young are neglected. Rutgers, like most large universities, pours resources into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs that "Corporate America" values. The fundamental aim of an education, to teach people how to think critically, to grasp and understand the systems of power that dominate our lives, to foster the common good, to construct a life of meaning and purpose, are sidelined, especially with the withering away of the humanities. 

"People with higher salaries and more job security are standing shoulder to shoulder with and supporting those who have lower salaries and do not have job security — and that’s historic,” said Lieberwitz. This is key in higher education because of far fewer tenure track faculty jobs compared to non-tenure track jobs."