Local 2141 (UCSB) Letter to Denise Stephens

18 August 2011

Dear Denise,

As you might be aware, over the years salaries for University of California librarians have fallen behind salaries for librarians in the California State University system and California community colleges—currently the gap is around twenty percent (20%). Over the years UC librarians have been asking for gradual raises to bring their salaries into line with their peers in state university and community college libraries. In every round of negotiations we are told that the university doesn’t have the money and it is a bad time to ask.

In the last round of negotiations with the University for long-overdue salary and professional development increases (2008-2010), librarians presented compelling evidence that low librarian salaries are negatively impacting the recruitment and retention of librarians of the caliber that University of California students and faculty have come to expect. The resulting offer from the University was salary increases of zero and professional development increases of $7-10 per year.

This past June UC librarians again embarked on salary negotiations after a mutually agreed-upon one-year hiatus, to allow the University some breathing room. Meanwhile, on the heels of our furlough cuts, we have all taken pay cuts from higher medical premiums and deductions for the retirement system. As we again prepared to present evidence that our low salaries negatively impact recruitment and retention of talented librarians, the University told us that, for as long as we insist on negotiating for any salary raises, our colleagues will be denied the merit raises that they had earned starting in July! For those librarians who have worked hard through budget cuts and increased workloads to provide excellent user services and demonstrated that they deserved their merit raises, this action has been devastating to morale. The University’s action in withholding the only existing pay increases we have been able to count on, because we are trying to achieve salary increases that will benefit library services and librarians is disheartening and counterproductive.

Although we do not want to put you in a difficult position with UC administrators or your peers, we would greatly appreciate your voice, as our leader, in support of salaries for UC librarians comparable to those of our colleagues in other California academic libraries. We would appreciate the chance to meet with you regarding the withholding of merit raises from our colleagues as well as recruitment, retention, workload, and morale issues. We hope that you will not accept what the University seems to be saying--that it is all right that we cannot compete on salaries with the CSUs and community colleges. As one of our colleagues wrote during the last negotiations, “The flow of talent should be to the UC libraries, not from them.” He continued: “We will all be here working together long after this budget crisis has passed, and unless we see improvement in salaries we will continue to have the same recruitment and retention problems. For the ULs to come out against any salary increase sends the wrong message to UCOP, the campus, and your library staff.”

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Members of AFT Local 2141