Twitter icon
Facebook icon
RSS icon
YouTube icon

calendar.png

Action alerts

Pay UC Lecturers More Than Graduate Students Instructors

Pay UC Lecturers More Than Graduate Students Instructors

Since mid-April, UC-AFT members and allies have been sending emails to UC administrators demanding that they take action to ensure that no lecturer be paid less than their TA, nor than a GSI teaching the same class. The pay gap and inversion between some lecturers and graduate student instructors has been widening, and the UC can and must pay its teaching faculty fairly. If you haven't done so already, please take just one minute to do this action so we can keep the pressure on!

Last week, The Chronicle of Higher Ed published an article about this situation and we encourage all members to read and share it.

For all lecturers currently receiving their reappointment letters or preparing for a merit review, UC-AFT encourages you to request a review of your salary and/or your workload equivalencies for any class you're assigned to ensure that you are not (or will not be) earning less than your TA.

A template for this request is here:

Dear chair,

I am writing to ask for a review of my salary to ensure I am not earning less than the TA(s) assigned to my class. As the instructor of record, hired by the UC because of my experience and degree(s), it would be unprofessional and unethical to pay me less than a student worker who has less experience and lacks the degree required for my own job. There are 3 ways the University can remedy such a pay inversion:

  1. Departments can offer lecturers a pay adjustment. There is nothing in the UC-AFT collective bargaining agreement that prevents revised appointment letters and/or adjustments to pay rates off-cycle.
  2. Departments can adjust the workload evaluation of a given course. If the work associated with a class is greater than the compensation, the University has the power to adjust the “instructional workload credit” (IWC) assigned to any course to ensure parity in terms of appointment percentage and compensation.
  3. Article 24.B of the UC-AFT collective bargaining agreement allows for the assignment of "workload equivalencies" which simply adds to the valuation of the course for performing certain types of additional work. Working with and mentoring TAs is one such justification.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Build Power with UC-AFT: Join our Contract Action Team now!

Our Contract Action Team (CAT) is the heart and soul of our union's strength on every campus and across the system.  CAT members invite new colleagues into our union, network with colleagues and friends around issues and bring issues to our union to think about and plan responses. Our CAT Program provides a series of workshops (zoom) where CATs from every campus get together to develop skills, confidence and relationships by working together through core considerations related to organizing and union building. And, every campus chapter has events where CATs get together in person with their campus UC-AFT community.

Email Josh Brahinsky for details: vporganizing@ucaft.org