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UC-AFT Faculty Bargaining Update February 12 and 26, 2020

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UC-AFT Faculty Bargaining Sessions #38-39

February 12 and 26, 2021

Zoom

 

Senate Faculty Support...Nearly 100 Senate Colleagues at Bargaining on 2/26

 

Nearly 100 Senate colleagues attended bargaining on February 26 to show solidarity and give statements in support of our job stability and rehire rights proposals. This group was largely self-organized by a handful of very solid Senate allies who have been with us in this fight since the beginning. Thanks to CUCFA and campus Faculty Associations for your ongoing support!

 

In total, we had over 560 unique participants.... Unit 17, 18 and Retiree members were joined by allies from our union coalition along with undergrad and graduate students and community members.

 

CA Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez released this statement and tweeted several times during our bargaining session:

 

"I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our UC lecturers as they fight for a fair new contract and protections to ensure proven lecturers are rehired to teach the courses they’ve taught all along. UC AFT lecturers play a fundamental teaching role in the educational mission of the University of California. Despite playing a critical role educating a growing population of UC students, our lecturers are making poverty wages and rely on public assistance to make ends meet. As the third largest employer in California, the UC can and should do better for the workers that make the UC run by providing living wages, real benefits and true job stability. I urge the UC to step up and meet the basic needs of our UC teachers."

 

#ShoulderToShoulder #SolidarityDefeatsPrecarity #FacultyUnited #FacultyEquity #StudentSuccess

 

 

February Sessions Overview
 

We met with management on February 12 and 26. Management continues to insist that they are interested in reaching agreement as quickly as possible, but they are refusing to pass a proposal on our highest priority, Article 7a Pre-Continuing Appointments. In January, UC’s chief negotiator told us that they would pass one more, final proposal on Article 7a. She has said repeatedly since then that rather than work toward agreement via collaborative discussion on 7a, that management would prefer to hold this article and force intense, last minute negotiations over it.

 

On February 26, UC-AFT passed an updated proposal on Article 24 Workload. Details below. Management passed a final proposal on Summer Sessions, which included a huge win for UC-AFT! Details also below.

 

Articles Passed in February: Sticking Points and Progress

 

At the February 12 session, management passed proposals on Article 22 Merit Reviews and on new Article X (Review Process and Criteria). UC-AFT passed Article 11 Leaves and Article 25 Union Rights.

 

On Article 22 Merit Reviews and Article X Review Criteria, management moved toward us and granted 45 days notice prior to the deadline to submit materials for review. They also removed “when practicable” from the review notice timeline requirement. Unfortunately, this proposal maintains the “exceptional” standard to achieve Senior Lecturer status, which, as it is currently defined by management, will be a barrier for nearly all teaching faculty.

 

On Article 11 Leaves, UC-AFT presented our proposal to eliminate the requirement that part-time, benefits ineligible lecturers participate in the Safe Harbor plan. This requirement allows UC to exclude these employees from Social Security, MediCare, long-term disability and Social Security survivors’ benefits. This practice by UC management makes nearly half of all lecturers ineligible for America’s most basic safety net.

 

On Article 25 Union rights, UC-AFT’s proposal focuses on UC compliance with the law which requires union access to New Employee Orientations. Management can either provide access to group orientations for newly hired U18 faculty that are specific to faculty interests, responsibilities and resources, or can provide UC-AFT leaders with access to individual onboarding meetings. The purpose of the government code is to provide for meaningful union access to and communication with our members, reasonably quickly after they’ve been hired. People need to know about their work and their rights, and we don’t want to have that access abridged.

 

At the February 26 session, management passed Article 23 Summer Sessions and UC-AFT passed our proposal on Article 24 Workload

 

On Article 23 Summer Sessions, management finally conceded on one of the last sticking points in this article and it is a huge win for us. One credit toward Continuing Appointment will now be granted for any course taught in Summer Sessions when the lecturer did not receive a full academic years credit the previous year. This removes a key limitation to credit toward continuing for Summer Session courses. We also gained employer contributions to the supplemental Defined Benefit Plan for Summer Session income on every campus.

 

On Article 24 Workload, UC-AFT’s proposal seeks to clarify current language for Writing and Foreign Language courses to ensure that at the campus level these courses have a maximum course load that is lower than the regular campus maximum. Our proposal would establish a statewide standard for IWC allocation, address fractional appointments that limit access to 100% appointments, eliminate “hourly” pay, grant parity with Senate faculty in terms of credit received for teaching the same course, and strengthen enforcement provisions to ensure that we can successfully grieve and arbitrate when management doesn’t follow the contract.

 

We agreed to language that the entirety of work in teaching a course should be accounted for in the IWC of the course. We think the key to fair workload practices is having a much more clear and specific definition for what counts as 1 IWC and what counts as more than 1 IWC. We also seek to better define duties that should be granted equivalencies as extra work.

 

The main response from management, predictably, was that most of the work we describe as “extra” and that is not accounted for in the IWC values for our courses...is voluntary. They still refuse to define our positions with the full halo of work that is required of teaching faculty to meet the expectation of excellence.

 

On Article 11 Leaves, UC-AFT presented the portion of our Leaves proposal that applies to paid Family Medical Leave. Our proposal would pro-rate eligibility from 1250 hours to 937 hours to reflect the difference between full time academic year appointments and full time fiscal year appointments. It would also ensure that pre-continuing faculty who require a leave will have the leave coordinated when the department intends to reappoint, regardless of the status of the reappointment.
 

Next Session:

 

To be scheduled...