Your librarian bargaining team met with UCOP Labor Relations on Monday, October 17 to present our counter-proposal to their latest offer. As you may recall, UC offered us a 1% base salary increase (with no retroactive pay from July 1) and no additional funding for professional development. Our counter-offer was for a 4% increase and $1500 per librarian in PD funding.
Great universities need great librarians! The contract that the UCOP negotiators are offering will not help UC recruit and retain great librarians:
UC Librarians make up to 27% LESS than their counterparts at CSU's and 19% less than CCC's. The university’s chief negotiator dismissed this, calling CSU and UC “apples and oranges.” UC is offering a 1% salary increase for the next two years. The Chancellors received a 3% raise last year alone. We have a major structural pay gap with competing institutions, and UC is refusing to even offer a reasonable cost of living adjustment.
Your bargaining team met with UCOP Labor Relations today to hear their response to our proposals for salary and professional development increases. As you may recall, our major proposals were for a 5% base salary increase and $2,000 per year professional development money for each librarian.
Dr. Raj Singh teaches in the School of Business Administration at UCR, where he recently received the Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence. He holds several advanced degrees from universities in India and the U.S., including a Ph.D. in Policy Planning and Administration from USC.
Writing program faculty from all UC Writing Programs met in Burbank on July 29 to discuss challenges and best practices within programs. Representatives from each campus shared program snapshots covering governance, review and hiring practices, class size and other workload considerations, and more. Participants generated and prioritized a list of key issues faced by writing program faculty statewide that will be the basis of ongoing collaboration. About 400 UC-AFT members teach in writing programs across UC.
UC-AFT's librarian bargaining team met with UC administrators in Oakland on July 6. This was the first session since May 24 when our team passed proposals on Salary and Professional Development funding. UC librarian salaries lag significantly behind librarian salaries at other local, state and private institutions in California. Professional Development funding for librarians is inadequate and levels vary from campus to campus. Librarians across the state wore t-shirts with the slogan "UC Librarians: Powering the UC Research Engine" in solidarity with our bargaining team.
At our statewide Council meeting in January, UC-AFT member representatives from every UC campus voted unanimously to endorse Bernie because of his long record of fighting for a fair and just economy for all Americans. Bernie believes, as we do, that higher education should be accessible to all qualified students regardless of economic background. Bernie will fight to end the student debt crisis and for free higher education.
Dr. Raj Singh teaches in the School of Business Administration at UCR, where he recently received the Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence. He holds several advanced degrees from universities in India and the U.S., including a Ph.D. in Policy Planning and Administration from USC.
