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NOTES FROM THE BARGAINING BUBBLE #12
by Bert Thomas, UCLA Representative, CUE BARGAINING TEAM
(A personal diary, not the Official Report)
UCLA, FEBRUARY 23-25, 2005
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE BUBBLE-FACTORY
On March 1st, I got a layoff notice, effective May 2.
Poor me or Lucky me?
Depends. Was it a case of "oops, we got an elected Bargainer of CUE...that Bubble-guy"? Or was it something more calculated, possibly retaliatory? Was I the "target"? Or just a bit of really low-paid "collateral damage"? It's tempting, I can tell you, to feel so special. After 9 years, to be the only remaining Senior Clerk in the Department of Pathology is pretty flattering, ain't it? Means I've got BOTH the most and the least seniority.
If this layoff was supposed to be a "cost-saving" measure, my whopping $13 an hour pay rate will save the UCLA Med Center almost $26K a year. It'd take 6 or 7 of me to equal what they'd save by whacking just one of my fine managers, but maybe they're trying to save something else...something other than money. Face, maybe. An interesting note is that when I next saw UC's Lead Negotiator, Peter Chester, just two days after my layoff notice...he allowed as how he'd been "sorry to hear of it". Which got me to wondering HOW HE KNEW ABOUT IT ALREADY. Pete seems mighty young and ambitious to be studying the obituary columns or layoff body-counts on a daily basis. Maybe it's his caring side...
Anyhow, don't cry for me, Westwood Village...I am neither sad nor discouraged. I feel sorrier for those who got whacked and don't have a union, attorneys, or a statewide email venue to tell it to. But if you write me with your story, even if you're from another union, I'll do what I can. I intend to bargain and "bubble-ize" and even try to find another job for as long as it takes to finish this contract or go on strike. Or both.
To my laid-off sisters and brothers at UCLA: our job is to look ahead with humor and dignity. Because the truth is, no matter what happens, we will be alright...my Universe smiles on the Brave and the Cheerful. It slowly pounds the porridge out of wimps and cowards who would betray us to cover their own bums. To live with joy is the best revenge.
SO MANY SUBJECTS...TOO LITTLE BUBBLE
Since our last little visit in Bubble 11, we've bargained and rallied at UCLA (February 23-25)...lunched with Howard Pripas, the executive director guy of Human Resources/Labor Relations in the Office of the President...and just had a bomb-diggity rally "honoring" the UC Regents meeting here at Covell Commons.
LUNCH WITH HOWARD, MARCH 3RD
A nice fella, from good East coast labor-union stock (on his mother's side), Howard Pripas somehow ended up working the other side of the table as Exec. Director Labor Relations/HR in UC's Office of the President. ("Where did we go wrong, Howie?") He's UC Negotiator Peter Chester's boss. Peter was there, too. They got an ear-full...from CUE Statewide President Mary Higgins, Chief Negotiator Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie, Santa Cruz Bargainer Kevin Parks and me. We were waving the Fact-Finder's Report in their faces, of course, but I'd have to say this meeting was "all about Bob" (Dynes), and Bob wasn't there. Howard admitted he'd only met Bob once. My guess is they'll meet again when a few UC hospitals are shut down in a strike. It's up to us to bring these two colleagues together.
BARGAINING FOR DOLLARS AT UCLA
CUE's Nancy Kabzenell of UC San Diego got things off to a fine start during our check-in ritual referring to the recently released FACT-FINDER'S REPORT (which confirmed what CUE has been saying for at least two years now: that the University not only has the money to pay workers fair wages and increases...but that last year it deliberately "diverted" funds specifically allocated for clerical wages to "other uses"...pretty much the way a pick-pocket "diverts" funds from your pocket to his.) "I've got an investment here!" said CUE's Nancy K. "I've been here 25 years...I'm a stakeholder! And I've been betrayed! I don't know how you can just sit there, making as much money as you do, and not care that so many of your workers are living in poverty! YOU helped choose the Fact-Finder...YOU, Peter, presented the University's case...and the Fact-Finder ruled AGAINST you! What kind of people are you?"
The University's Mr. Chester was not having a good day. Practically my first note reads: "PC (Peter Chester) very scared, angry about everything. White-faced, pouting..." He allowed as how HE would check-in for his whole team, denying them the opportunity to say what they were feeling, hoping for, at the beginning of bargaining. Just remarkable. And then, he commented and debated each CUE "check in" until one of us pointed out that this was...well...a little bit arrogant and ridiculous.
Moving to the RESPECTFUL, FAIR TREATMENT Article of the contract, Local 4 Grievance Handler, Tracy Hyman, was invited to address the table. At issue was the University's insistence that the Article is frivolously applied to nearly every grievance and should not be "grieveable or arbitrable". CUE Stewards contend that disrespectful, unfair treatment is a SALIENT FEATURE of virtually every grievance, that to make it unarbitrable would amount to giving bad supervisors a license-to-kill. Ms. Hyman said that in her experience with grievance hearings "whatever a clerical worker says is assumed to be a lie; whatever a supervisor says is assumed to be true...in my job I get to see, firsthand, the lack of respect accorded clerical workers in their jobs and in their grievance hearings. Grievances are routinely denied...UCOP doesn't even read them."
Mr. Chester averred that grievances WERE read and that OP's replies were responsive. "You are not interested in our interest," he said.
"Beyond a brute assertion of power, we have no idea what your interests are," said Ms. Hyman.
After lunch, the teams signed off on a Tentative Agreement about the Incentive Award Program (IAP's), a counter-proposal presented by CUE. That was it for the "dollars". And it was for your future incentive awards; you're supposed to have already received the current ones. If you haven't, let us know.
UCLA RALLY DAY AT KERCKHOFF HALL
Mr. Chester just hates these CUE rallies. He really does. A hundred people or so had gone out of their way to come to Kerckhoff Hall on their lunch hour to hear and make speeches, and to march, drum and chant. The UPTE bargaining team joined us from their meetings, CUE Local 4 Eboard leadership (including Susan Ervin, Local 4 Treasurer ALSO RECENTLY LAID OFF), AFSCME members and organizers, some righteously wonderful student leaders, etc. all contributed to the hoopla. Jen Smith, Local 4 V-P, gave a rousing speech, and CUE's Chief Negotiator, Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie lit the fire by citing the FACT-FINDERS REPORT, that says in black-and-white that the University of California actually went to all the trouble of "diverting" $20 million dollars specifically intended for clerical wages (an easy 4% pay boost for all clerical workers) and keeping the money for "other" uses. Sort of a bracing slap in the face, followed by a jolly spit in the eye.
The rally went on about an hour with speeches and chants being broadcast through a sound-system provided by CUE Organizer, Hershel Strother. I spied Mr. Chester standing directly in front of the large speaker (where no one else stood, to be sure) talking on his cell phone. Peculiar place to make a call, I thought...pretty noisy. It wasn't till the next morning that the University's Negotiator volunteered that he'd been attempting to "complain about the noise" to various campus departments, but had had to leave voice-messages because no live person was around to take his calls. I've personally challenged Peter to address the multitude, take the microphone, tell folks the real stuff, the stuff that CUE just "leaves out" because we're so dang prejudiced...but he has always demurred. Instead, he stands in front of a speaker and complains about the "noise". Action reveals character.
BACK TO THE TRENCHES
After the rally and on into the next day, discussions wandered back and forth from Wages to "Non-Economic Issues"...from the FACT-FINDERS REPORT to Performance Evaluations...from 5-figure bonuses for "senior management" to Personnel Files...
Mr. Chester says the University wants certain kinds of "negatives" to remain in Personnel Files longer than two years. Current contract language says that absent any new instances of an existing negative, the document must be removed after two years. We asked for examples of a negative that ought to remain longer. "Uh, sexual harassment?" He said he would come back with a list of specific negative items that would merit preservation longer than two years.
And he still believes the University should not have to hear grievances or arbitrations over the contents of Performance Evaluations. CUE's experience over the years points up too many instances of Performance Evaluations being used as punishment by bad supervisors to deny a less favored employee future raises and promotion.
CUE's Amatullah, after hours (and months) of discussion on these points, asked: "May we agree, Peter, that these are 'areas of GRAVE DIFFICULTY?' And move on?"
Why sure!
"GOOD FAITH BARGAINING"
...YESSIR, YESSIR, THREE BAGS FULL
One of us wanted to hear directly from Mr. Chester the University's response to the FACT-FINDERS REPORT, for the bargaining record. "The Neutral Fact-Finder considered the cases put forth by CUE and by YOU (Peter Chester was the University's Member-Spokesman on the Fact-Finding Panel)" ...and found the University guilty of having plenty of money (roughly $1.3 BILLION "PROFIT" over the last two years alone)...guilty of UNDERPAYING clerical workers, compared to Cal State employees, by up to 30%...and guilty of "diverting" $20 million SPECIFICALLY INTENDED FOR CLERICAL PAY RAISES (amounting to a 4% increase across the board) and posting it to unspecified "other purposes."
"No economic changes are possible, no way." Thus spake the University's Chester. Wind him up, he says the same thing, like a machine, just as though it were true. It's a dream job for an attorney, I'd say...that even when you lose, you can simply ignore the court.
And what a fine arrangement for a "corporate" university that enjoys the alibis available to it as a "public institution" when it wants to cry poor mouth. Financially, the University of California is only about 15% "public institution" and 85% "corporation". Which is why State funding and oversight don't seem to matter all that much to them. These are the same folks, after all, who bought up a ton of Enron stock and rode it all the way to the bottom of the tank. Canny financial wizards, these. (Take a bow, Joe Mullinix. And a big bonus. No layoff for you, buddy.)
"Does the University want to foment a strike? Because that's what you are doing."
UC's team member, Susan Wright, wondered, "What do you plan to gain from a strike?"
"Everything," we said, "beginning with respect. In pay, in grievances, in standing with the campus community."
Mr. Chester then clarified the University position. "It's not that we CAN'T (pay you more); it's that we are UNWILLING to treat the clerical unit differently..."
I am really much too old to take this person seriously.
NEXT STOP, THE LAB at BERKELEY & UCOP, OAKLAND
On March 21, we'll spend another day at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab; and March 22-24, we'll be meeting in that most luxurious of venues, the parking garage at UCOP. (As you can tell by checking the date of this dispatch, we've already been there, done that, and I owe you another Bubble pronto. My little layoff-drama and a fairly long bout with the killer gombu flu over the last week or so slowed me down some.) We're meeting them at UC RIVERSIDE in a couple of weeks, April 14-15. Hope to see and hear from some of you there.
IF YOU DON'T BELONG TO CUE,
THEY THINK YOU BELONG ON YOUR KNEES
Got a problem with that?
You can now JOIN CUE wherever you are. Fill out the application ONLINE at:
http://www.cueunion.org/membership_info/membformweb.pdf
Fill out the form, print, sign and mail it. So much easier than before. Your
membership sends a clear message to the University and celebrates your
solidarity with 17,000 clerical co-workers from Santa Cruz to San Diego,
throughout the University of California. For extra help, call our mighty
Local 4 Organizers:
THE STRIKE FUND...AN INVESTMENT IN YOUR FUTURE
Donating an hour's pay to the CUE Strike Fund every month is something each of us can do. Sort of an investment. Send it to:
CUE Bookkeeper
ATTN: Strike Fund
2855 Telegraph Avenue - Ste. 302
Berkeley, CA 94705
Blessins and Solidarity,
--BT (Bert Thomas, CUE's UCLA Bargaining Representative)
3.27.05