UUP President William Scheuer-man is taking an active role in helping nearly 3,000 administrative, professional and supervisory staff at Rutgers University form a union.

The Union of Rutgers Administra-tors/AFT, as the organizing entity of professional staff is called, has been trying to form a union under the state’s card-check law since spring 2006.

Scheuerman, an AFT vice president, in late January addressed the union hopefuls during an Organizing Committee meeting on the Rutgers campus. He spoke about the impact organizing and collective bargaining have had on the more than 32,000 members of UUP.

Sharing the podium was New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a longtime supporter of unions and workers’ rights. In December, Corzine pressured Rutgers President Richard McCormick to sign a neutrality agreement with union organizers. By the end of January — following a seven-hour negotiating session — a neutrality agreement was reached. As a result, McCormick halted the university’s anti-union campaign and, in an e-mail to staff, promised the university would no longer intimidate employees who considered signing an organizing card.

New Jersey state Assembly members Linda Stender and Patrick Diegnan also spoke on the positive role unions play in the lives of women and working families. Both were on the record as opposing the university’s use of tax dollars to threaten workers and to hire a union-busting consultant.

— Karen L. Mattison