Unit 18 Bargaining Update #8- Contract Extension Vote

Colleagues:

Our contract expires on 31 July 2011. The bargaining team is doing everything it can to insure that we have a new agreement before then. Realistically, given the large bureaucratic organization that is UC, our experience has shown that we will likely not reach an agreement before expiration.

As a result, we are formally requesting that you authorize the bargaining team to extend the contract on a month-to-month basis, so that we do not lose the ability to continue the grievance and arbitration process. We do not plan to extend easily, and we will endeavor to make UC react more quickly than it has to this point. (That said, in the world of UC, things are not moving slowly right now. I believe that they understand the urgency of having this unit in contract, given its proximity to the university's core mission.)

When you receive your ballot, please respond affirmatively to our request. If, on the other hand, a majority of members votes not to extend, the contract will expire. While we then gain an ability to strike, we lose our ability to proceed with arbitrations. At this juncture, we hope you will authorize us to extend the contract as necessary on a month-to-month basis.

What follows next is a regular update:

The two sides met in Oakland for two days of bargaining this week; we reached a tentative agreement on two articles: Article 3 (Academic Responsibility) and Article 30 (Discipline and Dismissal), both articles that the University opened. In Article three, we added language from the Academic Personnel Manual (which, in fact comes from the AAUP) about the ways in which academics work. In Article 30, we clarified the process for Discipline and Dismissal, reordering the current article and stripping out language that is unnecessary. The idea, of course, is that Dismissal for Cause is a kind of "reverse excellence review." The procedures for dismissing someone for cause are now clearer. Please be aware that the article has only ever been invoked once, and UC-AFT won an arbitration, restoring that individual to his job.

We also spent considerable time discussing everything else in the non-economic package, especially layoff (where we are trying to clarify seniority and increase the notice period for reductions in time), leaves (where we are trying to address a problem for a few members of our unit on fiscal year appointments), instructional support, grievance, arbitration, and workload. We are very close, we think, to reaching tentative agreements on all of these articles, provided UC's constituents do not raise objections that the bargainers have not anticipated.

We will bargain again next week, at Irvine, on Thursday and Friday, and then again the last week of July, also in Oakland, on the last three working days before the contract expires. Next week, we will tackle the Appointment Articles (7a, 7b, and 7c). We hope then to get to the economic package by the last week of July.

Please contact your staff person with any questions that you may have about either the vote or bargaining status.

Alan Karras

Chief Negotiator, Senior Lecturer

Associate Director, International and Area Studies (IAS)