Bargaining Update #12: Nov. 6-9, 2001
1. UC withdraws proposal on subcontracting - bad faith bargaining?
2. High-level administrators get 25%; UC continues to offer clericals 1%
3. Increase in health benefit costs
4. Comp time vs. pay for overtime
UC withdraws proposal on subcontracting - wants CUE to agree to provisions worse than state law
The four-day bargaining session between CUE and UC seemed to be making headway
until UC's Chief Negotiator, Sharon Hayden, withdrew UC's Subcontracting
proposal on the last day.
At the beginning of the four-day bargaining session UC gave CUE a proposal on
contracting out and then suddenly withdrew it on Friday. CUE's Bargaining Team
had prepared a response that could have settled a number of issues with UC,
thereby narrowing the issues. Hayden said she had not had the authority to
make the original proposal and gave CUE a new proposal on subcontracting.
UC is under significant pressure from the State Legislature to make sure
that no UC employees lose jobs as a result of contracting out. The
legislature has instructed that: "UC will not contract out for services
that are currently performed by UC employees."
Enormous increases for administrators making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year
In the same bargaining session, CUE's team received a second staggering piece
of information. High-paid UC administrators have been promised
salary increases of up to 25.9%. UC has justified its
meager wage proposal to CUE in part by asserting that all UC staff and
administrators would receive only 2% salary increases this year. CUE questioned
that assertion from the beginning. Bargainers will decide with the CUE
Executive Board what actions to take over UC's ongoing, bad-faith bargaining
with CUE. One would have hoped that ULPs filed by CUE over UC's bad-faith
bargaining last year would have made more of an impression.
UC withdrawing its Subcontracting proposal made the team's 3 days of work
almost useless. We will review and respond to UC's new package when we meet
November 28, 2001 at Riverside.
We have agreed to extend the contract until November 30, 2001 with the
understanding that either CUE or UC can cancel the extension with three
business day's notice to the other party.
Drastic increases in the cost of health benefits
The team met with Michele French, head of UC benefits, to discuss the
drastic increases in the cost of UC health benefits. Ms. French described
the process of bargaining between UC and the health plan providers and told
us that the alternative to the increases in co-payments would have been
higher monthly premiums. The state must decide the amount of money available
for UC's share of benefits based only on assumptions, because the fiscal year
begins in July and the benefit year begins in January. Therefore, the
increase projected by the state for this year was not enough to absorb the
enormous increases demanded by the providers. We told her that this method
of guessing at increases punishes users and has a disproportional impact on
lower-paid clericals. Ms. French agreed to meet with the unions before the
increases are finalized in the future.
Comp time vs. pay for overtime
We signed an agreement with UC over Compensatory Time. Because UC
misinformed some supervisors about the meaning of the contract language
concerning comp time, some employees who wanted to accrue comp time have not
been allowed to. UC agreed to allow those employees to accrue comp time
in the future and CUE agreed that all clerical employees would be allowed to
choose pay for overtime or comp time off during a special election period in
December. See the
full text of the agreement.
CUE continues to press for better wages. We have information
showing that UC can well afford a decent increase for clericals. We pointed
out to UC the increase in the cost of living of 5.5% over the past
year, increases in parking, and increases in health-plan costs. If we
accept their offer of 1%, clericals will sustain a dramatic cut in real
wages (buying power). We are waiting for their response.
We will meet again with UC at the UC Riverside Extension Center November 28-29.
Dates and a location will soon be selected for more bargaining during the
week of December 10.
CUE's Bargaining Team:
- Margy Wilkinson, Chief Negotiator
- Chris Benoit, Lead Negotiator
- Becky Croll, Davis
- Hilary FitzGerald-Nicholson, Berkeley / UCOP
- Deborah Freeman, San Francisco
- Jody Galluzzi, San Diego
- Elaine Hernandez, Irvine
- Jack Joshua, Santa Barbara
- Connie McGrath, Riverside
- Zoe Sodja, Santa Cruz
- Anita Windom-Jones, Los Angeles
- Eleni Yatar, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
