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The election is complete. Thank you for your support!
Some of Ryan's accomplishments during his time in leadership:
Some of Ryan's accomplishments during his time in leadership:
Winner of the HPAE 2008 Local Award "in recognition of... Outstanding Work & Dedication to the Local" for work as the IST Committee Chair and contributions to energizing our membership and working to foster a culture of participation and organizing.
Served as chair of the IST Committee and met with well over 100 members of the UMDNJ IST department, scheduling membership meetings, increasing membership, putting together a labor-management agenda to address workplace issues, and building secondary leadership to replace him when he ran for Grievance Chair.
Served two terms as Grievance Chair, bringing a renewed focus to the role's responsibilities as leader and mentor to the local union reps, ensuring that they had the training they needed to be successful and that all felt confident to represent members as necessary, as well as understood the role that union representatives play as organizers.
Participated in AFT's "Membership Consolidation/Internal Organizing" program, as well as the efforts stemming from that training, and together with other members of the team successfully increased our local membership percentage, as well as worked to integrate a culture of organizing and participation in our local (including the practice of providing food at membership meetings so that members were not choosing food or the meeting, which doubled attendance).
Through our participation in the Coalition for Rutgers Unions, pushed for and ultimately won an additional month of salary increases beyond what Rutgers said was their final offer during the 2020 Fiscal Emergency negotiations.
Chaired the University Hospital Committee on Negotiations where we successfully moved the hospital off of their alleged "final offer" multiple times by resisting the pressure to accept status-quo offers in a time of unprecedented inflation and strain on the healthcare system, and ultimately won 3 additional months of retro pay for the entire union workforce – even unions that had already settled contracts.
Led the local through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, holding regular membership meetings and pivoting early to videoconference meetings, giving members at remote sites unprecedented and safe access to participation in our local union, speaking to members at all hours about health and safety concerns and how to counter our employers' dangerous and insufficient practices.
Co-Chaired (along with Co-President Justin O'Hea) the Rutgers University Committee on Negotiations, navigating strong opinions and significant internal disagreement to ultimately successfully moving Rutgers to their highest salary offer in at least 20 years, including (potentially for the first time) retro payment and increases for people who retired between tentative agreement and payment of the salary increases, and increases for all unit members, regardless of how long they have worked at the University (and despite Rutgers' later attempts to renege), securing salary increases for members who haven't even been hired yet.
Successfully fought for open bargaining during the recent Rutgers contract negotiations, resulting in the largest number of direct participants in the bargaining process in recent history, and otherwise tirelessly fought for the maximum transparency possible, via increased participation in meetings with management, avoiding sidebars in negotiations, and otherwise opting for more voices whenever possible.
Recruited a diverse group of leaders to fill vacant board positions – in terms of both demographics and job function -- and assisted leaders with recruitment efforts resulting in the first staffed local committees in recent history (if you'd like to join one or to find out more about what roles are available, please reach out!).
Organized, recruited leaders, and coordinated logistics for a multi-campus Solidarity Walk (pictured) on June 6th to mobilize our membership in support of our Committee on Negotiations, who were scheduled to meet with management the next day, as a display of unity and solidarity. 80 members particpated on short notice!
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