UC-AFT re-elected all of its system wide officers in unopposed elections at the April Council meeting. Congratulations to the officers, and many thanks to the elections committee for conducting the elections. For your information, the candidate statements are posted below.

Candidate Statements

Bob Samuels, President
 

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 few years, I have been involved in the negotiations of the Unit 17 and Unit 18 contracts, and I have also negotiated the first two staff union contracts.  During this same period, I worked closely with the CFT 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.

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 has helped us to resolve many potential issues for our members. 

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 have not been easy, and we are working to improve the organized strength of this unit. Miki has also been instrumental in our effort to improve the financial stability of UC-AFT.

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 contract we have negotiated with the staff, and I look forward to increasing the activism of all members in our union.

Alan Karras, VP Grievances

This is a tough time; it is tough to be an academic, it is tough to work for UC. And while there is more hope around this year than last, workplace conditions have not yet improved. Indeed, over the last six months, we have seen more irresolvable grievances at UC than in past years. Put simply, the University lacks the will to enforce our contracts clearly. As a result, we have come to a very difficult place in our labor relations with UCOP, and with some (though not all) of the campuses. Being VP for Grievances has sorely challenged my patience over the last year, but the ultimate good that we have been able to achieve has made the endless fighting worthwhile. We are in for more of the same, if not worse, I am afraid. The campuses' bad behavior is not a response to budget cuts--let's be clear--rather, many campuses are taking advantage of the lack of authority and diminished UCOP resources to revert to their bad old practices. We must not let this continue, as it will ultimately erode our hard-fought contracts. I am running again for VP-Grievances in order to maintain our watchdog approach, and in order to maximize on our (increasingly diminishing) working relationship with campus and UCOP officials. Some of them still care, and we must work with those who do care in order to challenge those who want to run roughshod over our contract protections. I bring to the job energy, connections, and a long history of closely working both with our Executive Director and any UC administrators who have been assigned to UC-AFT matters. And we have, despite it all, an excellent track record of achieving settlements and resolutions to difficult cases. I intend to continue that record, despite it being increasingly difficult to do so.

Mike Rotkin, VP Organizing

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 the 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.

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.

I have a great deal of interest in labor organizing and building effective labor organizations. My teaching job at UCSC in the Community Studies Department is focused on labor and community organizing and other activist concerns. I have been an effective labor and community organizer for all of my adult life. My experience includes creating successful neighborhood groups, having been elected six times to the Santa Cruz City Council, and having served four terms as Mayor of Santa Cruz. I believe that I have more than demonstrated my ability to serve the members of the UC-AFT in the capacity of Vice President for Organizing. Although I am quite busy in both my teaching job at UC and in my work as a Councilmember, I am extremely committed to Lecturer and Librarian rights at UC and worker rights at UC and in society in general. I typically spend about 15 hours a week on union business. In January I spent 106 hours doing union business for the UC-AFT (although that is certainly more than a typical month).

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.

During the current economic crisis that is facing the nation and California to an even greater degree, it is important for the leaders of the UC-AFT to not allow our members to simply acquiesce to the prevailing public view that these are hard times and that we should all reduce our expectations of our employer. While this might not be the most favorable time to be bargaining over compensation for librarians or, at the end of this calendar year, to be reopening the lecturer contract. But we have to remember that despite the general economic meltdown, the University of California still has $6.5 billion (that is billion with a B) in unrestricted funds. Since the news of the financial collapse of the banking system and the growing recession/depression, the University administration has given hefty pay increases to University police, service workers, hospital workers, and others and they continue to grant obscene golden parachutes to top executives leaving the University.

We must continue to work to mobilize our members and educate legislators, students, parents, and other members of the workforce and public about the negative impacts of paying our librarians and other members far below market compensation. We have made real progress in mobilizing librarians this past year, but we still have a long way to go. I firmly believe that if we work at this, we can succeed, even in these difficult times, in winning significant contract concessions from our employer. I believe it is the primary job of the Vice President for Organizing to facilitate this process. It involves helping to coordinate work on the campuses with our legislative strategy, our bargaining strategy, and our public education strategy. If re-elected, I promise to recommit myself to a leadership role in this struggle during the coming year.

 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.

Benjamin Harder, VP Legislative

 I am seeking reelection to the post of Vice President for Legislative Affairs of the UC-AFT.  Legislative affairs have become quite confused and diverse recently.  The enforced turnover of legislators due to term limits, the byzantine course through which the California state budget is negotiated and implemented, the perpetual uncertainty caused by ballot initiatives that seek to force the state into mutually opposed policies, the changing roles of state and national governments, and the recent and critical economic collapse have complicated tremendously our union's attempts to promote fair compensation for librarians, fair benefits for part-time lecturers, and reasonable working conditions for all members.

 This spring I have been reaching out to legislators and the Lieutenant Governor to gain sympathy and support for librarians in their struggle for fair wages.  While there is no legislation that can fix librarians' bargaining problems, the clear support of our senators and assembly members can help the UC do the right thing.  Over summer and fall, I will be working on legislation to get the UC to provide social security benefits to those who teach less than 50% time.  Throughout the year, I will be working with friendly legislators, CFT, other UC unions, other higher education unions, and student groups to protect higher education funding in California from those who would turn their back on the promise of our colleges and universities.  As the 50^th anniversary of the California Master Plan approaches, the structure and funding of the UC, the CSU, and the CC system will be evaluated; it is vital that we educate legislature about the importance, strengths, challenges, and missteps in the UC. 

 I am eager to continue my work as Vice President for Legislative Affairs.  The progress in legislative action is neither quick nor linear, so having a consistent presence will help us to reach our long-term goals.

Miki Goral, Secretary-Treasurer

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.

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.

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.

In light of the budgetary constraints facing the University of California, we need to be vigilant in monitoring the treatment of our unit members—to prevent exploitation and undue work assignments. Union members need to be apprised of their rights and given the support they need to ensure that they are not taken advantage of—I will work to be sure that this happens.

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.

I look forward to continue representing our members and strengthening the organization of the union.