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2008 UC-AFT
Election
CANDIDATE STATEMENTS
Bob Samuels, President
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As President of UC-AFT, I will continue to work to help defend the rights and professional status of all members in Units17 and 18. In the last four years, I have been involved in the negotiations of the Unit 17and Unit 18 contracts, and I also negotiated the staff union contracts. During this same period, I worked closely with the CFT and Kevin Roddy to fight the Special Election initiatives and to increase our political clout. Moreover, these political efforts and the augmented dues our union has to pay to AFT and CFT has required me to spend a lot of time on cutting our costs and changing our own dues structure, while negotiating with CFT and AFT over our financial relationships.
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It is important to point out that during my term in office, we have seen substantial improvement in the salaries and security of people in both units. We also have witnessed a better working relationship with the Office of the President, and this improved relationship has meant that many potential problems have been dealt with before they have become grievances.
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On the grievance and enforcement side, we have won several recent cases, and we have also won important arbitration and Public Employment Relations Board cases. These legal efforts have been coupled with the work of Alan Karras, Ben Harder, Karen Sawislak, and myself on the Unit 18 contract implementation manual, which will help us to resolve many potential issues for our members.
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I want to thank Miki Goral and Mike Rotkin for their continued leadership in helping to protect the status of librarians. Our current negotiations over the Unit 17 contract will not be easy, and we know that we must improve the organized strength of this unit. Miki has also been instrumental in our effort to improve the financial stability of UC-AFT.
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Finally, I would like to continue to professionalize our union and work with our Executive Director to help support and coordinate our staff. I am proud of the recent additions to our staff, and I look forward to increasing the activism of all members in our union.
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Samuels email
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Alan Karras, Vice-President for Grievances
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I am running for re-election for the position of Vice-President for
Grievances. Though working with grievants (whose situations are, by
definition, unhappy) and fighting the University's massive and lumbering
bureaucracy is not always easy, I believe that we continue to make progress
and I relish the opportunity to keep the pressure on.
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For the vast majority of the people who are represented in both the
lecturers' and librarians' units, the contracts are the most important
point of contact with the Union. Having a strong contract is important, of
course; having a strongly enforced contract is essential. Over the last
four years, I have done everything in my power to make sure that our
contracts are clearly and consistently enforced. In some cases that has
meant using the grievance process; we have been able to resolve most of the
issues that have come before us, whether at an individual or at a group
level, in ways that all parties can accept. In other cases that has meant
working directly with the UCOP Offices of Labor Relations to pressure the
campuses to fix problems that they have been unwilling to solve.
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The last year has been particularly hard. Several campuses, but especially
UCSD and UCLA, have done everything in their power to avoid admitting that
they violated the contract. It took mighty efforts, by me, by UCOP, and
especially by our Executive Director, to get the campuses to address the
violations. I believe that this is a trend, and as we go into an unclear
budgetary climate, I expect that these campuses, which were never model
citizens, to become more typical of what we see around the state.
Enforcement will therefore become even more important.
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I also intend to continue the Union's path of staff and steward development,
so that much of the grievance work can continue to be handled by those on
local campuses. We have done grievance training and will continue to do
grievance training. My goal, in all of this, is to have the local staff be as
consistent as possible from one campus to the next and to act quickly when
violations are brought to their attention.
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There can be no doubt that our Union is far more effective than it was before
2003. There can also be no doubt that much of this is because of our
consistent and, so it often feels, relentless pursuit of forcing the
University to live with that which it has bargained. I bring to the job
renewed energy to insure that all of our members know their rights and are
willing to fight for them using the tools that we have available.
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Finally, I continue my commitment to work with the other officers and members
of the council. All of them have worked diligently to improve the working
conditions for our members. I am proud to have played a part in those efforts
and look forward to continuing to do so over the next year.
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Alan
Karras email
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Mike
Rotkin, Vice-President for Organizing
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I am pleased to be running for re-election as Vice President for Organizing
of the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT).
I have belonged to the organization since its formation in the late 1980s.
I served as Chief Negotiator for Unit 18 Lecturers for two decades until
2001 and briefly again a few years ago. I have been on every bargaining
team for Unit 18 since the second contract to the present. I have served as
President of the UCSC local (AFT 2199) since the late 1980s until the
present and have handled the majority of UCSC Unit 18 grievances during
that period. I have also served previously as the statewide Vice President
for Grievances and Vice President for Legislation. Currently, I am serving
as the Chief Negotiator for Unit 17 Librarians. I also had previous union
experience in AFSCME (before there was an AFT at UC), and in th UAW in the
1960s when I worked in an automobile plant. I was the AFSCME delegate to
the Santa Cruz County Central Labor Council for almost ten years and served
on its Executive Board for most of that time.
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Unions can only effectively represent the interests of their members when
the members are well-organized and prepared to speak up and stand up for
themselves. All too often; however, we blame the members when they appear
apathetic or lacking in the commitment necessary to bring effective
pressure against the employer in the bargaining process. But developing
effective union membership involves a process of empowerment that does not
happen automatically. While it is true that, ultimately, the members are
responsible for the state of their own organization, the job of union
leadership, and particularly the Vice President for Organizing, is to build
rank and file power within the union. As leaders, we have to create the
conditions that foster activism on the part of our members by demonstrating
to the members that their active involvement is necessary for our success
and that, if they are active, we can succeed in changing the conditions of
work at UC and our compensation for it.
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Unions can only effectively represent the interests of their members when
the members are well-organized and prepared to speak up and stand up for
themselves. All too often; however, we blame the members when they appear
apathetic or lacking in the commitment necessary to bring effective
pressure against the employer in the bargaining process. But developing
effective union membership involves a process of empowerment that does not
happen automatically. While it is true that, ultimately, the members are
responsible for the state of their own organization, the job of union
leadership, and particularly the Vice President for Organizing, is to build
rank and file power within the union. As leaders, we have to create the
conditions that foster activism on the part of our members by demonstrating
to the members that their active involvement is necessary for our success
and that, if they are active, we can succeed in changing the conditions of
work at UC and our compensation for it.
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If re-elected to the position of VP for Organizing, I will do my utmost to
provide our members with the leadership necessary to build a strong and
effective union. Those who have worked with me know that my organizing
style is energetic but inclusive. I understand that one cannot be effective
in building an activist culture and participatory membership in a union
with an overbearing or authoritarian style of leadership.
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I take a great deal of pleasure in working with my colleagues in the UC-AFT
and helping to empower all of us to create an effective organization that
can help us win the compensation, benefits, and working conditions that
every worker deserves. I hope that you will support my re-election to the
position of VP for Organizing. I also support the re-election of all of the
incumbents running for re-election to the Executive Board of the UC-AFT. I
believe they have been an effective, collaborative, and extremely
hard-working group in representing the interests of all of our members.
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Mike
Rotkin email
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Ben Harder, Vice-President, Legislation
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I am pleased to run for the position of Vice President, Legislation, and eager to build on the work done in previous years by previous teams of union leadership. I am very proud to be associated with a union that has raised the starting salaries of lecturers almost 50% over the past ten years, that has instituted the notion of continuing lecturers, and that has worked with a coalition of unions to stall University plans to institute steep, unnecessary increases in employee contributions to our pension fund.
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My goal as Vice President of Legislation is to continue this good work, extending our gains to librarians, who have not seen significant salary gains, and to those who are denied proportional health and retirement benefits and even social security: part time lecturers. One of my priorities in legislative affairs will be to encourage the University to treat the librarians with the dignity required by their vital roles in the academic process; the other will be to continue efforts among unions and other stakeholders in the University to fix the unjust treatment of lecturers who teach less than half time.
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But as a realist, I recognize that our first legislative priority as a union must be to bring a sense of sanity to the state government as it tries to weather a severe fiscal crisis. We have already seen the plans to cut budgets across the system, and we know that such cuts may have significant negative impacts on our working environments. It is vital that we, along with allies in the AFT/CFT and other unions, seek to help the legislature chose funding priorities wisely.
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I have served the union in several capacities during my nine years as a lecturer. I was a strike captain during the labor action at the turn of the century, I am currently the president of my local, Riverside 1966, I have worked with the coalition of UC unions, and I have served twice on the non-senate faculty bargaining team, most recently as chief negotiator. My experience in these duties has given me a good foundation for working cooperatively with allies to further our goals.
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I hope to receive your support, both in the election, and, if I am elected, in my work as Vice President, Legislation.
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Ben Harder email
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Miki Goral, Secretary-Treasurer
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I am running for re-election as UC-AFT Secretary Treasurer. I have had the honor of serving UC-AFT in various capacities since 1983, when I first joined the Unit 17 (Librarians) bargaining team as the record-keeper, later becoming the chief negotiator. I have led the Unit 17 negotiating teams from 1984 to 2007, when I passed the reins to UC-AFT Vice-President Mike Rotkin. I remain involved as Chief Negotiator Emeriti, providing context for the current bargaining.
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In 1984, I was elected Secretary of UC-AFT, an office I held until 1986, when I became Treasurer. In 1999, a re-structuring of the Council combined the duties of Secretary and Treasurer into one position, which I have held since then. During my tenure as a Council officer, I have worked with a number of officeholders and Executive Directors and can provide a context of continuity for the work of the organization.
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The Secretary-Treasurer's duties are set out in the By-Laws: namely to record and disseminate minutes of Council meetings and to be responsible for all monies received and paid out by UC-AFT. I have developed and streamlined procedures to fulfill the duties of the job efficiently and accurately.
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I believe the contracts we have negotiated have provided protections for members of the bargaining units. It is now a challenge of UC-AFT to educate our members about their contracts (whether Unit 17 or Unit 18) and the rights that are enumerated. We must be sure that the University abides by the contracts that have been negotiated. This will take more involvement on the part of members, a goal I will work towards.
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While most of the union's work is focused on representing our members and enforcing the contracts we have negotiated, we must not forget that UC-AFT is part of the larger union movement in the United States. I serve as a vice-president of the California Federation of Teachers, representing the interests of UC-AFT, along with UC-AFT President Bob Samuels, in that body.
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I look forward to continue representing our members and strengthening the organization of the union.
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Miki Goral email
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