2004-2005: Bargaining Report #3: September 7-8, 2004, San Francisco, CA
The CUE bargaining team met with the bargaining team from the University of
California for the fourth round of bargaining for the new contract on Sept. 7
and 8, 2004 at the UCSF Laurel Heights campus.
The bargaining session of Sept. 7 began with a re-visitation of CUE's offer to
extend the current contract to the end of December 2004 in exchange for the
two "Bonus Days". UC expressed interest in extending the contract, however no
decision was made by UC regarding CUE's offer.
The demand-explanation phase then continued with a discussion of Article 14,
Leaves of Absence. CUE proposed that UC provide paid Family and Medical
Leave Act (FMLA) leave as provided by California law to workers covered by
State Disability Insurance (SDI) and that leaves of absence not be
unreasonably denied. CUE also proposed to expand the FMLA definition of
"family member" to include "any other person for whom the employee has a
personal obligation who is residing in the employee's household," and that
employees not be required to use accrued vacation before taking leave without
pay during a FMLA leave.
UC also proposed to expand the FMLA definition of "family member" to "same
or opposite sex domestic partner." This was one of the few areas in which both
parties did not outright disagree, although further discussion will need to
take place on specific language. UC also proposed to change the calculation of
leave time from simply "leave year" to "calendar year." UC claims this will
potentially allow an employee to use their 90 days of FMLA before December
31 of one year, and then be eligible for another 90 days of FMLA beginning
January 1 of the new year, provided they worked 1250 hours in the previous
year.
On the face of it, this seemed possibly beneficial, which immediately caused
skepticism among the CUE team. A few of UC's team members balked at our
concerns, and said, "We're just being gracious. When you're faced with grace,
you don't slap it down." This prompted our Chief Negotiator Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie to remark that we were entitled to our skepticism, considering that UC
gave the two Bonus days to every other union free and clear, but when it was
offered to CUE, there were "strings attached." (The offer to us was contingent
upon CUE immediately agreeing to and signing off on the entire contract.)
"We're always looking for the strings," Alaji-Sabrie said. UC's Chief
Negotiator Peter Chester replied, "Well, sometimes a give is just a give," to which one of
UC's own team members blurted out, "Yeah, but can you blame them?"
The discussion then moved on to Article 16, Medical Separation. CUE
proposed to extend the medical separation time limit from 180 days to 270 by
adding in the 90 days of FMLA. UC had no significant comment and we
adjourned for the day.
Bargaining resumed on Wednesday, Sept. 8 with Article 19, Multiple
Appointments. CUE proposed that employees should accrue vacation and sick
leave based on total time worked in all appointments, regardless of what
percentage they work in the bargaining unit. UC again made no significant
remarks.
UC then proposed a change to Article 20, No Strikes. The change would
prohibit CUE represented employees from participating in sympathy strikes.
CUE objected to this proposal and both sides agreed to look into prior
agreements and legal issues.
UC also proposed to add "applicable State and Federal" before the word "laws"
in Article 21, Nondiscrimination in Employment, add "gender identity" as a
protected group, and remove "HIV status." CUE heavily questioned UC's
motives for lining out "HIV status." While UC did confirm that a person is
protected from discrimination because of their HIV status under the umbrella
term "medical condition", CUE questioned the current contract language
definition of "medical condition" and how it might be misinterpreted.
After a lunch break, demand-explanation picked up again with Article 22, Out of
Classification Assignment. CUE proposed that UC pay its employees at a
higher rate for all hours performing the work of a higher classification,
regardless of how many days (consecutive or not) the work is done. CUE also
proposed that UC notify CUE when a clerical is temporarily assigned to duties
of a higher classification. A lengthy but productive discussion then occurred
about different ways to accurately calculate the time spent performing out of
class work.
The final article discussed was Article 23, Parking. UC simply proposed that
UC notify CUE at least 45 days prior to the implementation of new or changed
parking fees. CUE proposed several changes to the parking article, including
that UC be held to providing adequate, accessible, safe parking and that UC
shall maintain its Alternative Transportation programs, among many other
things (see
CUE's 2004 proposals). UC maintained that implementing all of CUE's
proposals would be nearly impossible since each campus has unique parking
problems and because each campus's parking department is run
independently, meaning that there is no statewide UC director of parking.
Sept. 8 ended with a brief "check-out" period in which everyone had a chance
to speak freely about how they felt bargaining was progressing. UC's team
primarily spoke about their desire to get through the demand-explanation
phase and to hear less of our stories of financial hardship, management abuse
and overall lack of fair treatment. The CUE team spoke passionately and
emotionally about the dire straits of its 18,000 members.
Some of the first remarks concerned UC's position that it does not have the
resources to give its clericals raises. One CUE bargainer said, "It's hard for
us to understand how UC can continue to say it doesn't have money when there is
hard evidence that there is more than $2 billion in unrestricted funds." To
which Peter Chester replied, "Well, we never said we didn't have the money, it's just
a question of how we allocate it." Members of the CUE team were shocked.
The CUE bargainer persisted, "Let me get this straight: UC fully admits it has
the money to afford raises, but you just don't want to GIVE it to us?" The
answer was in the affirmative.
This led the CUE bargainer (one of the two lowest-paid members of the team)
to give a highly emotional speech about how extremely frugally she has to live
in order to barely get by every month. "I have no future at UC," she said, "UC
does not pay me enough to have a financial future. I can potentially give the
university 30 years of my life, but if I continue to make what I make now, I
will never be able to afford my own home or purchase a new car or participate in
any of the major life changes that most working adults are able to. And when I
retire, I will have nothing because Social Security will have long been
depleted and because for 30 years, my employer didn't pay me enough to even save
$100 a month." The UC team looked stunned and made many sincere
promises to take our stories back to the Regents and President Dynes.
Despite the emotional end of day, overall, everyone felt very positive about
the progress of the bargaining sessions and the communication channels opening
up between the teams. Copies of the grad student investigation report
Berkeley's Betrayal: Wages and Working Conditions at Cal were handed out to
the UC team on Sept. 7, and the bargaining session of Sept. 8 closed with the
impassioned request to thoroughly read the report. The UC team seemed more
than amenable to this.
The bargaining team would like to thank the guests who participated both Sept. 7
and 8 at UCSF. They brought with them a wealth of information and
experience and really made an impact on the bargaining sessions of both days.
The entire CUE bargaining team encourages EVERYONE to try and be a guest
at the bargaining sessions. Guests are able to ask questions and relate
experiences, and it really shows UC that the clericals are a strong, united
front.
The next bargaining session will take place Sept. 28-30 at UC Riverside.
CUE Bargaining Team:
Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie, Chief Negotiator, UC Berkeley
Norine Shima, UC Berkeley
Helane Carpenter, LBNL
Mary Jo Kelly, UC Davis
Cynthia Norman, UC Irvine
Bert Thomas, UC Los Angeles
Stacey Fullwiler, UC Riverside
Mary Higgins, UC San Francisco
Melinda Gandara, UC Santa Barbara
Kevin Parks, UC Santa Cruz
Nancy Kabzenell, UC San Diego
