UC - AFT NEWS

• UC-AFT Officer Candidate statements
• UCB Extension English Language Program to close
• Lecturers Bargaining archives
• UC Administrators' Compensation Packages
• Spring, 2004 UC-AFT Perspective (1 MB pdf)
• Roddy and Klar meet with Dynes

The UC-AFT entered negotiations with the University two and one half years ago with a simple (but not easy) goal: to produce a contract that accurately reflected the contributions of Non-Senate Faculty (NSF) to the University of California. Meeting this challenge meant reversing the longstanding myth that NSF at UC are temporary employees filling temporary needs.
The Union did not come to the table intending to achieve "tenure" for NSF, as some have suggested. Far from it. What the Union has been asserting is that, in five key areas, the contract needs to reflect the expertise and dedication of--and the long-term need for--an excellent teaching faculty at the University of California. Our proposals reflect this reality. Nothing more. Nothing less.

UC-AFT Proposals:Job Security
Because the University's need for NSF is long-term, because in some departments that need is permanent, and because many NSF are in essence career employees, those NSF should have a level of job security comparable to that of other UC career employees. That job security would include "just cause" protection (you cannot be let go for no reason) and layoff based upon seniority within departments (assuming comparable qualifications). These provisions would not prevent departments from hiring temporary lecturers to fill genuinely temporary instructional needs. But although our proposal allows the University considerable flexibility within the first six years of employment, we have sought to ensure NSF protection from arbitrary and capricious employment decisions.

Wages
NSF compensation should reflect the educational and experience level of NSF, Parity with Senate Faculty should be restored (same percentage increases each year), and a fair and regularized year-round salary structure (including Summer Session) should be implemented. "By agreement" wages, where the University has been setting rates below the contractually mandated minimums, should be eliminated.

Workload
Reasonable workload levels should be set and monitored in order to permit NSF to provide the quality education to students that they pay for and deserve.

Professional Development
Assuming that NSF are an integral part of the University community, they should have access to the same types of professional opportunities as other faculty in the areas of conferences, committee work and paid leaves and such opportunities should be funded by the Administration.

Dispute Resolution
Assuming that both parties to a contract agree on its contents those same parties should be willing to have disputes under that contract resolved via a fair, timely and transparent process.
Although the University purports to have addressed these issues in various ways, an examination of the specific details of their most recent offer reveals that they actually have not.

UC Administration Responses:

Job Security
NSF would be "at-will" employees during their first six years of employment at the University, with no protection against being replaced by cheaper NSF regardless of performance.
Post-Six NSF would be granted "Continuing Appointments." But these appointments could be discontinued whenever the University administration chose to replace a NSF with a grad student, an adjunct or a "visiting" professor. Although arguably the current 3-year contracts could have been cut short using the one-year layoff provision, the practice was that they were generally inviolate.

In cases of layoff, a Post-Six NSF would only have bumping rights when a pre-six NSF and a Continuing Appointee are teaching the same course in the same department. When a Continuing Appointee alleges that s/he is equally qualified to teach other courses the University evaluates that claim and the University determines whether the two are equally qualified. Such decisions are not subject to review.

The Administration's proposal reduces the layoff notice (or pay in lieu) in the current contract from one-year to six months, and adds a new qualifier that only those NSF appointed at or above 50% would be eligible for any notice or notice pay.

Wages
The Administration's wage offer would increase the entry-level salary to approximately $35,000. Though this sounds like a substantial increase, it would actually mean raises for fewer than 10% of all lecturers, and mostly slight raises for those. The total cost for all lecturers on all campuses would be less than $500,000.

The Administration's wage offer would include no increase in salary for the current year 02-03 and would permit the suspension of Merit increases in years where funding from the State was not available. The offer does include the payment of wage increases allocated by the state for NSF during the past two years (totaling 3.5-4.5%) for those NSF still at the University. Because the Administration does not want to calculate true retroactive pay, a lump sum would be provided and UC-AFT would have to determine the method of allocation.

Workload
A committee would be set up to examine the issue of NSF workload in English and foreign languages, but a majority of that committee would be chosen by the Administration. The committee would have over a year to conduct its study during which time there would be no prohibition on increasing workload levels.

Professional Development
The Administration has allocated only $200,000 in professional development funds for lecturers on all ten campuses.

Dispute Resolution
Even when the University has agreed to submit to third party arbitration, the ability to resolve disputes is crippled by limitations placed on the arbitrator's authority and oversight. The Union agreed that in disputes involving "academic judgment," when an arbitrator ruled in favor of the Union, the case would go back to UC academics for review. But later the Administration manipulated that concept so as to permit them to attain exactly the same result--so long as they follow the procedures they set up and they control.

During the last six months we have been engaged in mediation, utilizing the services of Governor Gray Davis's top labor relations official, Marty Morgenstern. Even so, the Administration has continued to reject reasonable compromises and has refused to engage in constructive give and take. Even when we seem to be making progress in discussions, they have repeatedly failed to include positions taken and commitments made at the bargaining table in the written documents they subsequently hand us.

At our most recent mediation session on October 22, the Administration's representatives stated a clear position on contract enforceability before lunch and reversed themselves that same afternoon--effectively undermining and ending the mediation process. It appears that they came to Sacramento intending only to present their final position rather than to continue a dialogue in search of mutually acceptable solutions.

The Administration will tout their improved benefit package for quarter-by-quarter appointees. This is an important improvement and a significant gain for approximately 350 NSF. Still, the Administration is really only providing these appointees the rights they should have had all along--if the University had been fairly calculating their actual workloads and the likeliness of their reappointment from one quarter to the next. Had the University been fairly interpreting the language of the former contract and the intent of its own benefits policies, this problem could have (and should have) been fixed outside of the bargaining process long ago. The existing practice was stingy and unseemly, a potential public embarrassment that needed to be reformed. Now they are presenting that reform as a generous concession to camouflage their refusal to compromise in so many other areas.

It is true, as the Administration points out, that they and we have come to agreement on approximately a dozen other articles. While most of those changes were somewhat minor, they were the subject of bargaining and coming to agreement, and that progress gave us hope for some progress on larger issues as well. But what these minor changes did not address was the Union's oft-stated and consistent goal in this negotiation--to produce a contract that accurately reflected and valued the contributions of NSF at the University of California. About settling minor articles there was never any real dispute. There also was no dispute about which key issues needed to be addressed in order to reach an agreement. The Administration has known what those issues were from the very first months of the negotiations. Now, after two and half years, they are offering detailed changes related to those key issues, many for the first time, but are doing so by handing us a "last, best, final offer," an offer that they know is still far from acceptable.

Finally, the Administration threatens that if we do not accept their "improved" offer ("Offer A"), they will implement their less favorable "pre-mediation" offer ("Offer B"). This speaks volumes about their fundamental labor relations philosophy. They are saying, "We will give you this, but only if you participate in the charade that this has been a meaningful collective bargaining process." This maneuver is an attempt to bolster the their sagging public relations campaign, to claim that they are working with unions to improve labor relations.

If we agree to their offer, they will tell the Legislature, the Governor, and the public that they don't have labor relations problems because they get contracts. If we reject their Offer A, they will attempt to impose Offer B. Among the many lesser terms contained in the punitive Offer B are:

• the absence of improvements in benefits for quarter by quarter NSF
• the lack of language prohibiting "post-six avoidance"
• the reduction of the Professional Development fund to approximately $40,000 total for all nine campuses
• no consideration of equal qualifications during layoffs
• no retro pool
• no increases in minimum scale
• no workload evaluation committee.

We must now decide how to proceed. We can choose to reject the Administration's heavy-handed tactics. If we do that, they have to choose either to return to the table or to declare impasse. The strength of support they see for the Union at this time will certainly influence their decision about whether or not to return to the table.

If they choose to declare impasse, the next stage of the process will be fact finding. Both sides will present their proposals to a three-person panel. One member will be chosen by the Administration, one by the Union, and one by agreement of both parties. This panel will then produce a non-binding recommendation. Should the Administration reject that

recommendation, the Administration is free to attempt to impose their Offer B and we are free to engage in job actions up to and including strikes in order to resist that imposition.
The Union rep(s) at your campus will be setting up meetings and getting more information to you as we begin this crucial deliberative process. Staff and bargaining team members will provide the history and context for your discussions.

You, however, must provide the heart and soul of this effort. What is at stake here is institutional recognition of lecturers' professionalism, contributions, and achievements. We cannot win that recognition without you. All lecturers must be involved in deciding our strategy and carrying it out.

by Rebecca Rhine, Chief Negotiator, UC-AFT