SUMMARY (details below)
1. UC REFUSED CUE'S MOST RECENT EXPANDED OFFER ON WAGES. In exchange for our pay increases, CUE had offered to bargain locally on some work rule changes, rather than insisting on bargaining them at statewide negotiations. UC continues to demand that in order to distribute the money allocated by the legislature we must agree to allow UC to
implement any and all work rules whenever they want to, without needing to show business necessity or health and safety reasons, and without bargaining with the union. UC also proposed giving retroactive wages as a lump sum, instead of as base-building pay.
2. UC DECLARED THAT THEY WILL NOT COMMIT TO PROVIDE A COMPASSIONATE LEAVE PROGRAM FOR ALL CLERICALS at all campuses, medical centers, and Lab. If there is a leave-sharing program in place at a campus that only applies to a few clerical employees -- for example, one department -- UC considers that sufficient. UC has agreed to implement a leave-sharing program at LBNL, the only location with no program at all, but so far hasn't been willing to put anything in writing.
3. CUE wants to bargain on the campuses so that clerical employees can attend the sessions, and to save union and taxpayer money by not renting rooms. UC only wants to bargain at Office of the President, far from any campus, in order to make it difficult for clericals to attend, and because that is where UC's chief negotiator has her office.
DETAILS ON BARGAINING
The CUE bargaining team met with UC at the Riverside Campus on December 2 & 3, 1998. Topics on the table included interim wages, which CUE considers of paramount importance, and continuing discussions on a universal compassionate leave-sharing program.
Interim Wages
UC continues to make it clear that it wants to get rid of the existing step + range adjustment pay system and replace it with a wage structure in which all raises would be determined by individual supervisors or committees of administrators.
The key obstacle to agreement on interim wages, however, continues to be UC's insistence on tying wages to work rules. The language that UC wants on work rules says, in part: "The University has the unilateral right at its sole discretion to promulgate, supplement, alter, modify, rescind, and enforce work rules... The University may enforce these work rules while employees are ... working ... and/or outside the employee's working hours..."
CUE is not willing to give UC and individual supervisors and departments unilateral authority to institute work rules which could dramatically affect our work lives and result in disciplinary action. We are willing to bargain work rules that arise from actual business necessities, and we have agreed to UC's previously stated position
that negotiations on work rules could take place at the campus level. However, UC has now changed its position on this point. Negotiating at the campus level is not good enough -- they want free rein. Many clericals have urged us not to give up our right to bargain on work rules for the 2% UC has owed us since 10/1/98.
UC has proposed that, if they agree to grant our 1998 pay increase, the retroactive part of our increases would not be base-building, but rather be in a single lump sum. CUE is considering this offer, if UC is willing to reconsider tying wages to work rules.
Compassionate Leave
At the very end of the previous bargaining session UC had informed us that Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the only UC campus/lab with no compassionate leave-sharing program at all, was going to develop one. The CUE bargaining team felt we were very close to a systemwide program which would make it possible for us to sign off on this item.
Recently UC had provided the CUE bargaining team with guidelines from UC President Atkinson giving individual Chancellors authority to establish leave sharing programs. These guidelines provide the basis for a universal leave sharing program across units and departments on each campus. We asked UC negotiators to agree in writing to follow these guidelines but UC chief negotiator Sharon Hayden refused, saying "we will not be bound by them."
UC did agree that the University would provide a leave sharing program at every campus/hospital/laboratory, and that it would be applicable to clerical employees. But when asked to clarify UC's intent, UC's chief negotiator said that it would be enough for any campus to have a leave program applicable only to clericals in one department -- even if clericals in other departments would not be covered by any such program. CUE indicated that we were not willing to sign off unless *all* clerical employees at each campus or location were eligible to donate and to receive shared leave. It will be on our agenda when we meet with them next on January 20 and 21, 1999.
Where to bargain?
We continue to have conflicts with UC on where to bargain. CUE and UC signed ground rules agreeing to bargain in rooms that are free or low cost, preferably at the campuses, and that locations would be mutually agreed upon. But now UC insists that we should meet at only one place: the conference rooms at UCOP in downtown Oakland. These rooms are not near a campus, which would make it difficult for clericals (even clericals at the northern campuses) to attend and observe bargaining. CUE thinks it is important to make these locations accessible for all UC clericals who want to attend. As always we will
keep you informed.
CUE's Bargaining Team:
- Kris Amaral (San Francisco)
- Christine Benoit (Riverside)
- Debbie Ceder (Santa Barbara)
- Mary Harrington (Santa Cruz)
- Lyn Kelly (Los Angeles)
- Robin Luczak (San Diego)
- Linda Moser (Davis)
- Joanne Murray (Santa Barbara)
- Cynthia Norman (Irvine)
- John Randolph (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
- Margy Wilkinson (Berkeley)
- Mark Blum (Chief Negotiator)
