Unit 17 Bargaining Update #8 2-26-2013

The UC-AFT library bargaining team was scheduled to meet with the UCOP team for two days at the end of February. Prior to beginning our first day of bargaining on Monday, February 25, the Chief Negotiator for UCOP informed us that due to newly developing budget situations on the campuses, most of her team would not be able to bargain the next day. We were disappointed that they were not prepared for bargaining the full two days, especially since the UCOP team had requested that we schedule two days of bargaining. 

We were prepared to return three articles to the UCOP team and to discuss our position regarding the review process and the grievance and arbitration articles. We passed these articles to the UCOP team and discussed why they are important and how they impact our work as librarians.

Since the UCOP team was not able to bargain the second day, your bargaining team spent the second day working on other articles that are open to negotiation. By doing so we are trying to shape the direction of the bargaining process. Most of the significant reorganization of the MOU is due to your librarian bargaining team and their effort to make the review process more streamlined and rational.

Your bargaining team has discussed the recent letter from UC President Mark Yudof regarding no range adjustments this year and its potential impact on bargaining. Ken Lyons, a bargaining team member, has spent a considerable amount of time developing a new librarian salary scale that is both rational and equitable. We hope that the UCOP team will adopt Ken’s salary scale as a first step towards pay equity with the CSU librarians.  We believe that this is possible despite the gloomy news from President Yudof.

We continue to struggle to preserve those professional and academic aspects that are core to our ability to serve as librarians in the University of California System. We are also working very hard to preserve the means by which we can address and hopefully resolve problems that we face both individually and collectively. These means – grievance and arbitration – are essential to being able to challenge the looming workload problems and continuing de-professionalization that we face as librarians in the UC System.

Mike Rotkin, Chief Negotiator

Axel E. Borg , Deputy Chief Negotiator