By TOM BALDWIN
STAFF WRITER
April 13, 2010

NEW BRUNSWICK — The Rutgers University administrative-staffers union, joined by students and faculty, took a swipe at Gov. Chris Christie's proposed budget Tuesday, saying the Republican governor had pledged last December to increase funding for higher education.

"There are these very draconian cuts right now that the governor has proposed," said Lucye Millerand, president of the approximately 2,000-member Union of Rutgers Administrators.

The group said members did not face specific losses but expected layoffs or expanded responsibilities as the university struggles to do more with fewer employees.

Millerand, of Highland Park, and others at a press conference held in the graduate-students lounge said Christie's 15-percent cuts to higher education had already affected operations.

"They don't have the manpower," said union member Kathleen Licinski of Ocean Gate, who is an executive assistant in the Asian Languages Department.

"These are working-class, middle-class people. These are not the rock-star professors," Millerand said of her members, who she said earned from $26,000 a year to "maybe the mid-90s."

"Where are the priorities?" asked junior public-policy major John Aspray of Annapolis, Md.

Christine O'Connell of Plainfield, who teaches low-income people about healthy eating in a Rutgers community-outreach program, said, "We are asking Gov. Christie to reconsider his cuts."

Originally available at: http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20100413/NEWS/4130338/Rutgers+union+members+protest+Christie+s+cuts