Paid Leave for Family Care and Bonding Letter to UCOP

June 2, 2021

Nadine Fishel
Associate Director, Labor Relations
UC Office of the President
By Email: nadine.fishel@ucop.edu
 

RE: PAY FOR FAMILY CARE AND BONDING

Dear Nadine:

Enclosed is a signed side letter authorizing the University to implement Pay for

Family Care and Bonding (PFCB) for the IX Bargaining Unit (Unit 18 Non-Senate Faculty)

until June 30, 2022. We are delighted that the University is seeking to expand family support

systems. We are equally eager to bargain a final version of the PFCB plan that is appropriate

for Unit 18 faculty into Article 12 (Leaves of Absence) of our Unit 18 contract.

As you know, we are currently in successor negotiations with the University for a

new Unit 18 contract. As presented to us, the University’s PFCB proposal is “independent of

successor bargaining” (per your May 6th, 2021 email) and take-it-or-leave it. As we have

made clear in verbal and written comments to the University as well as on the record at the

bargaining table, we fully expect the University to bargain PFCB with us in good faith

because it is a mandatory subject of bargaining. Thus far, the University has declined to

bargain over PFCB. During a bargaining session on February 26, 2021, Amy Lee expressed

the position that the University would not bargain over PFCB because the program was a

matter of pay for leaves, and the PFCB is not a leave per se. Of course, pay and leaves are

both mandatory subjects of bargaining.

The University’s refusal, at least until now, to engage in good faith negotiations over

a mandatory subject of bargaining is, however, not a reason to deny UC-AFT members an

opportunity to participate in the PFCB while we negotiate our successor contract. Therefore,

we are authorizing a temporary implementation of PFCB for the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

Lecturers have unique circumstances compared to other UC employees: because of

the University’s widespread use of short-term, part-time, benefits-ineligible appointments, we

are less likely to be eligible for the Family and Medical Leave on which PFCB depends. With

a median annual salary of $19,067, lecturers may not be able to afford to take a paid leave if

they receive only 70% of their salary during the leave, as the University has proposed.

Finally, lecturers are far more likely than tenure-track faculty to be women, and thus more

likely to need robust support for family care and bonding. These factors combined mean that

Unit 18 faculty may not be able to take advantage of a one-size, fits-all PFCB program that

has been designed for full-time, ongoing employees who are paid more and have more stable

jobs.

Given these factors that are particular to our bargaining unit, we cannot at this time

accept the University’s take-it-or-leave-it PFCB proposal in perpetuity without bargaining

over appropriate modifications for our members. Given that the Unit 18 contract is currently

open and successor negotiations are ongoing, there are also other elements of the Unit 18

contract being bargained that may affect the parties’ positions and proposals on PFCB. We

are more than happy to negotiate a PFCB plan to be incorporated into the Unit 18 contract,

and we look forward to the University’s partnership in bargaining PFCB that will support

lecturers and their families.

Sincerely,

Mia L. McIver, Ph.D.
Lecturer, UCLA Writing Programs
President, UC-AFT