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Newark is a union town. Newark is a union tower.

The union tower.

Get down.

It's the takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris Perry.

On Monday morning at Rutgers University in New Jersey, thousands of professors, part-time lecturers,

graduate and undergraduate student workers all marched together, holding signs reading,

We are on strike for a better Rutgers.

In response to the strike of more than 9,000 workers, University President Jonathan Holloway

threatened legal action against faculty, claiming that the strike was illegal. But the Coalition

of Unions asserts there is no state law prohibiting work stoppages or strikes by public employees,

including the faculty at Rutgers. So far, the standoff between the university and its workers has caused the governor of New

Jersey to step in and try to come to a resolution. We spoke on Wednesday morning with Donna Merch,

Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University, and the new Brunswick chapter president

of Rutgers A-A-A-U-P-A-F-T, one of the unions, which is on strike. Professor Merch, thanks for

joining us today. Oh, it's such a pleasure to be on your show. All right, so help us understand

what are the issues at stake. Why are these unions in solidarity and on strike?

The core demands now are focusing on the most vulnerable and lowest paid workers in our unit,

which are adjunct part-time faculty and also graduate students, getting them a livable wage and taking part-time lecturers and linking

their pay to other non-tenure track lecturers. So this is a strike at the core of what the university

...