CUE and UC met in Oakland on July 13 & 14. CUE last made a wage
proposal to UC in early May. We have had 7 bargaining sessions since
then and this time UC finally made a tentative and incomplete first
wage offer.
For many months CUE and other UC unions have been lobbying hard in
Sacramento to get more money in the UC budget for salaries. We are
pleased that our efforts were quite successful. As a result, the
governor signed into law an increase of $19 million beyond what UC had
originally requested specifically for increases in staff compensation.
This increase gets us part of the way to our goal of restoring lost
purchasing power of clerical wages and beginning to close the market
parity gap. For our goal to be achieved, UC will have to match the
governor's and the legislature's commitment to UC employees by
contributing other University funds, as well. This is the least that
can be expected from the University, but so far UC has not stepped
forward with a proposal that demonstrates a matching commitment to its
own employees. This is the key challenge before us.
In this bargaining session UC once again offered only 2% for 1999-2000.
It is notable that UC proposed to exclude many employees from receiving
back pay just as they did with the interim wage offer of last July.
CUE is committed to achieving more money for 1999-2000 and complete
retroactivity to begin the process of restoring the 9.3% losses in
purchasing power that UC clericals have suffered over recent years.
UC's sketchy and tentative first salary offer for 2000-2001 included a mere
4% increase and designated that increase for some clerical employees
but not all. CUE had proposed that additional steps be added to each
classification, so that long-term employees would also be eligible for
merit increases. UC did not respond to this proposal.
CUE had proposed that the incentive award program money, which is 1.3% of
clerical salaries, be distributed to all clericals equally as a percentage
increase. UC offered only 0.8% to be distributed as a non-base-building
lump sum (if it was added to base pay it would make subsequent increases
larger and affect one's retirement benefits in a positive way). CUE is
committed to transforming the Incentive Award Program into a fair and
equitable 1.3% increase for ALL clerical employees.
Finally UC's proposal fails to address gross inequities in the pay
structure at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. CUE is committed to
fair compensation for all LBNL employees.
CUE has proposed that UC provide clericals with shift and weekend
differentials which are equitable to those received by employees in other
unions. UC has proposed to raise shift differentials for clericals from
$0.32 to only $0.37 per hour. Other UC unionized employees earn as much as
four times the shift differentials that UC currently pays its clerical
employees. We must stress that this is UC's first offer, that it is
tentative and sketchy -- and in fact incomplete. We have not yet received
an entire section of their proposal in writing.
We meet with UC next Thursday and Friday. It is important that UC hear
from you -- look for a message from CUE with three things you can do,
coming soon. Please let them know that we need a raise, that we know
they have the money, and that it's time for pay equity for UC clericals.
CUE's Bargaining Team:
- Christine Benoit (Riverside)
- Stephane Berlaud (San Francisco)
- Debbie Ceder (Santa Barbara)
- Mark Covington (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
- Jennifer Goodheart (Santa Cruz)
- LeAnn Herigstad (Davis)
- Alyce Herrera (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
- Lyn Kelly (Los Angeles)
- Robin Luczak (San Diego)
- Joanne Murray (Santa Barbara)
- Cynthia Norman (Irvine)
- Margy Wilkinson (Berkeley)
- Mark Blum (Chief Negotiator)
