Unit 17 Bargaining Update #4

Librarian negotiators Jared Campbell (UCD), Miki Goral (UCLA), Ken Lyons (UCSC), and Harrison Dekker (UCB) met with the management team of Helen Henry (UCD), Tammie Dearie (UCSD), Susan Wong (UCB), Gloria Robledo (UCLA) and UC chief spokesperson Peter Chester on Thursday September 1, 2011.

Over the last 10 days, there's been a lot of activity on the campuses as each local drafted and delivered signed letters to their UL. Davis was the first campus to hold a meeting with their UL. At Berkeley, the UL attended a forum with 32 librarians armed with prepared questions. Santa Cruz was shut out from a meeting after receiving a letter from the UL stating that due to bargaining she was unable to meet.

These activities had an effect at the bargaining table as a more meaningful discussion around the salary issues occurred than has happened so far. The University has not yet put a specific salary proposal on the table. However, we are pursuing a 3% increase like that which the non-represented librarians, staff and Senate are being offered. And for the first time, UC was open to discussing retroactivity back to July 1, 2011, for the withheld merits.

The UC continues to claim that CSU and community colleges are not our comparable institutions. In fact, according to UC, our librarians do very well when compared with other ARL institutions.

We proposed eliminating the barrier step so that distinguished status would not be tied to salary. UC was totally dismissive of this proposal, citing excessive cost as the reason.

Our next meeting is September 29th and until then we need to stay focused and mobilized, because it works!

Your Bargaining Team