UC Management’s Pattern of Bad Faith

In the last 10 days, UC-AFT has filed two new unfair labor practice charges over the UC management’s refusal to participate in good faith in the statutory impasse procedures and to bargain in good faith over paid family leaves.

Over the last 20 months, we filed five additional unfair labor practice charges over various unilateral changes, refusals to bargain and repudiation of our contract. UCOP’s seven ULPs in the last twenty months show a clear pattern of disrespect, lack of consideration, and unlawful actions, all of which interferes with our negotiating process and undermines our collective bargaining rights.

Here’s a list of the charges in brief with links to full descriptions below.

• Refusal to bargain over paid leave policy, which is a mandatory subject of bargaining
• Bad faith with respect to the impasse procedures;
• Repudiation of mutually agreed-to contract terms that provide for additional compensation for online instruction and essential teaching supplies;
• Refusal to bargain over settlement terms after improperly withholding employer retirement contributions;
• Refusal to bargain over the effects of layoffs lecturers at UC Davis;
• Refusal to bargain over a unilateral attempt to exclude some lecturers from our bargaining unit at UCSC;
• Refusal to bargain over the impacts of COVID conditions on K-12 teachers represented by UC-AFT. Management only came to the bargaining table and negotiated in good faith after UC-AFT K-12 teachers authorized a strike over UCOP’s bad faith.

UC management has demonstrated the same pattern with our fellow UC workers, forcing them to strike.

Enough is enough! We must fight together to protest UC management’s refusal to bargain with UC-AFT in good faith.

UCOP’s Refusal to Bargain over Paid Family Leave

In October 2021, UC-AFT filed a ULP charging that President Drake’s administration has refused to negotiate in good faith over a new paid family leave program. The policy would provide eight weeks of paid leave for some UC employees to care for a seriously ill family member or bond with a new child. But the eligibility threshold to access the new benefit excludes thousands of lecturers, the majority of whom teach part-time and are more likely to be women and caregivers than their tenure-track colleagues. Worried that lecturers would be left behind again, UC-AFT demanded to negotiate over the details of the policy. UC management initially stated that the new paid family leave program was “subject to collective bargaining,” but President Drake’s representatives have subsequently, repeatedly declared in writing that they would not negotiate.

UCOP’s Failure to Participate in Statutory Impasse Procedures in Good Faith

In November 2021, UC-AFT filed a ULP charging that President Drake’s administration has failed to participate in the statutory impasse procedures in good faith as required by law. Despite UC-AFT’s insistence that any on-the-record bargaining take place in an open bargaining session, UC negotiators went outside the confidential mediation process and emailed the Union an on-the-record proposal. President Drake’s representatives unilaterally imposed a deadline for UC-AFT to accept or reject the offer, take-it-or-leave-it, and refused to meet with UC-AFT in an opening bargaining session until the offer had “expired.” President Drake’s representatives misrepresented the terms of their proposal in bargaining and in public communications and misrepresented their own conduct in this process in direct communications to UC-AFT members.

UCOP’s Refusal to Bargain over Missing Retirement Contributions

In May 2020, UC management informed over 200 of our members that they had failed to make the employer supplemental retirement contributions for close to two years. These unpaid, contractually-required contributions amounted to some $650,000. UC-AFT demanded to bargain over the detrimental effects of this costly error and how it should be remedied, but President Drake’s representatives simply refused to negotiate, claiming that the problem was solved. This lack of transparency and unilateral decision-making violates the spirit of our collective bargaining rights. We still don't know if our members have been made whole. UC-AFT filed an unfair practice charge and continues to pursue it.

UCOP’s Refusal to Bargain Effects of Layoffs

After UC Davis’s administration unilaterally decided to close its Physical Education program, UC-AFT demanded to negotiate over the effects. Just two days before classes were to begin, fourteen lecturers, who together taught some 6,000 students a year, received emails notifying them their jobs would be discontinued. While UC management has the right to cancel classes and lay off personnel, we have the right to negotiate the effects of layoff, like timing and other accommodations. In this case, no university protocol was followed: management simply refused to negotiate. We filed another unfair practice charge.

UCOP’s Repudiation of Our Contract--Refusal to Compensate for Additional Work and Reimburse for Out-of-Pocket Expenses
After campuses closed and all courses were moved online in March 2020, UC teaching faculty stepped up for their students, spending countless hours and their own money to ensure high-quality remote teaching. UC-AFT demanded that management negotiate terms to ensure that lecturers would be compensated for additional work and out-of-pocket costs. Management refused to negotiate, and they repudiated our current contract by refusing to implement the status quo terms related to workload and instructional support. We filed an unfair practice charge in September 2020 and PERB issued a complaint, meaning there's evidence of labor law violation. Unfortunately, our settlement discussions have stalled because UC has refused to respond or engage in negotiations.

UCOP’s Refusal to Bargain COVID Effects for K-12 Schools

UC-AFT’s demand to bargain over the impacts of remote instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic included impacts on our members who teach at UC’s three K-12 schools (The Preuss School at UCSD, UCLA Lab School, UCLA Geffen Academy). While UC Management agreed to negotiate, they refused to schedule bargaining dates for the Lab School at UCLA. UC-AFT filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge and PERB very quickly issued a complaint. Management only came to the table to negotiate after our members at the Lab School threatened to strike.

UCOP’s Refusal to Bargain over Exclusion of Lecturers from Our Bargaining Unit

In December 2020, the administration at UCSC announced a new policy that would, under certain conditions, prohibit those who were teaching courses as a lecturer from being included in our bargaining unit. In addition to classroom teaching, many of our members hold other jobs within the university—as program coordinators, supervisors of teacher education, or researchers—and have previously been included in our bargaining unit because of their teaching duties. When UC management unilaterally implemented a new policy, UC-AFT filed an unfair practice charge for unilateral modification of the bargaining unit and failure to bargain the change.