FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: UC TEACHING FACULTY BEGIN CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS WITH RALLIES STATEWIDE FEB. 19
Media Contacts:
UC-AFT Director Bill Quirk bquirk@ucaft.org
UC-AFT President Katie Rodger president@ucaft.org
UC-AFT Communications communications@ucaft.org
Teaching faculty at the University of California represented by UC-AFT (University Council-American Federation of Teachers), including non-tenured lecturers and K-12 teachers, will hold rallies across the state on Thursday, February 19th to mark the beginning of their collective bargaining negotiations with UC. Specific campus details and contact information appears below.
UC-AFT members include writers and architects, scientists and world-class musicians, nurses and lawyers, artists and philosophers, supervisors of education and K-12 instructors. Together, they teach some 30-40% of credit hours at UC, from large core curriculum and first year writing classes to specialized graduate courses and upper-division seminars. But because of how the UC undervalues the work of teaching, over 80% of UC teaching faculty are considered part-time employees, and over 56% do not have access to healthcare or benefits.
UC-AFT teaching faculty negotiated their current contract through the darkest days of the pandemic and won significant gains that improved their wages and job stability. But in the atmosphere of campus repression and severe budget cuts, many of those gains have been eroded. Taking advantage of loopholes related to “fiscal emergencies,” over 200 UC teaching faculty saw their appointments reduced or eliminated entirely since spring of 2025, and campus libraries imposed severe cuts to services as well. Teaching faculty have endured attacks on their rights to free speech and academic freedom, and the introduction of new technologies that undermine their privacy and the autonomy of their classrooms. And as the cost of housing and health insurance continues to skyrocket in California, their wages have not kept pace with the rate of inflation, with many teaching faculty unable to afford to live in the communities where they teach.
“After ten years of service, I ultimately made the difficult decision to leave a profession I deeply loved despite having obtained continuing lecturer status,” described UC-AFT member Kevin MacClaren, a core curriculum instructor from UCSC. “The work itself, teaching, mentoring, and engaging with students, was profoundly fulfilling. Yet despite my commitment, the low wages and lack of financial stability made it impossible to sustain a livelihood in Santa Cruz.”
The precarity teaching faculty experience hurts UC students as well, as Christopher Dean of UCSB described. “This year, we saw our number of classes rise and the amount of compensation we get for administrative work drop. This means longer hours, less time to meet with and mentor students, and less time to update our pedagogy. Every cut affects our ability to be excellent teachers for UC students.”
The democratically-elected members serving on the UC-AFT bargaining team will meet today on the UC Berkeley campus to begin their negotiations with representatives of the UC Office of the President. They are seeking more equitable protections for academic freedom, new protections around privacy and the use of technology in their classrooms, and enhanced job security protections that will bring an end to their precarity. More details on UC-AFT’s bargaining priorities are available at WeTeachUC.org.
“Our Table Team has been working together for a year already,” says John Branstetter, who will be leading the negotiations for UC-AFT, “and will be well prepared to present our bargaining priorities. We expect UC to listen.”
Campus specific details includes:
UC Berkeley – Bargaining session at Bauer Wurster Hall, 9:30am; tabling outside California Hall 10:30-2:30pm –
UC Davis – 12pm, Mrak Hall
UC Irvine – 4:30pm, Science Library iLabB (5th Floor)
UC Los Angeles – 4pm, Murphy Hall
UC Riverside – 1:30pm, Rivera Library Room 140
UC Santa Barbara – 12pm, Library Lawn
UC Santa Cruz – 12pm, McHenry Library
UC San Diego – 2:30pm, Warren Mall
