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NOTES FROM THE BARGAINING BUBBLE #18
by Bert Thomas, UCLA Representative, CUE BARGAINING TEAM
(A personal diary, not the Official Report)
UC OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, OAKLAND, August 18, 2005
"IMPASSE"-ED
"Dear Interested Parties:
The Public Employment Relations Board has determined the existence of an impasse in the above case. The State Mediation and Conciliation Service (SMCS) will assign a mediator who will contact you shortly...
Sincerely,
Jerilyn Gelt, Labor Relations Specialist, PERB"
Thus, in two sentences, did a career PERB attorney casually dismiss nearly 30 pages of detailed objections to UC's rush to impasse in her letter of August 23rd. No explanation, no legal reasoning offered, not even a simulated effort to justify her decision. My, my...
And no doubt, glasses were raised in triumph at the Office of the President in Oakland. O, to be a fly on the wall...to see Peter Chester and Howard Pripas hoisted about the executive conference room on the shoulders of "Maximum Bob" (Dynes), Joe "Goldfinger" Mullinix, and...uh, Judy Boyette? Not a pretty picture, even in the "Super Suits" and "Power Ties" of my fevered imagination. Cheering the successful execution of yet another year of suppressing wages among the rabble by means of bullying, deception, and "surface" (pretend) bargaining.
So, yeah, we have a few questions...
BUT WAIT, NOW THEY WANT TO MEET AGAIN...
Friday, August 26th, Mr. Chester of UC called our Chief Negotiator, Ms. Alaji-Sabrie to request ANOTHER bargaining meeting. Before mediation. So, whaddaya think? Should we go? Chester wouldn't have called our Amatullah unless somebody told him he had to. Maybe we should ask him what it is, and if it's because he forgot to cross a "t" or dot an "i" at the table, we should just tell him "no thanks...see you at mediation." Question is, Pete, if we're at impasse, how come you want another bargaining meeting? You were in such a hurry, dude. What's the problem now?
MEDIATION? OH WELL...
It means the CUE Bargaining Team will go to "mediation" on dates yet to be determined. The teams will sit in separate rooms while the state-appointed Mediator passes back and forth betwixt them, trying to craft an agreement. Thus, the choice of Mediator becomes a crucial element in how things will turn out. Having steam-rolled the impasse declaration, the University will now attempt to steam-roll the selection of the Mediator. We're not exactly on a runaway train, but in the reign of Schwarzenegger, and a PERB board all loaded up with Terminator appointees, it's close enough to make one a tad wary. Have PERB and its attorney, Ms. Gelt, somehow been suckered into an appearance of complicity in this saboutage of the collective bargaining process? Or did they all just casually screw up, and now they want to casually give poor Chester the job of un-screwing?
WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE
All of UC's worker unions have been treated the same at one time or another...albeit, more often in the past 10 years. The University has apparently found this post-bargaining stage to be more productive than any sincere effort to negotiate at the table. Here, it can exercise its considerable power and political influence over people who've never heard a lick of your testimony or ours. So it is small wonder that the gamy, mindless negotiating effort with CUE over the past year has come to this ridiculous pass, despite our efforts to head it off.
As regular readers of The Bubble must know, I have never felt comfortable with the University's trumpeted commitment to "good faith bargaining." There has been quite a lot of lip-service...with precious little evidence of it.
From the beginning, more than a year ago, the University has stonewalled and obfuscated, lied and attempted to bully this union and its Bargaining Team through the effete and unconvincing agency of its Negotiator, Peter Chester. We have had a long time to admire--and remark upon--his character. Enough, certainly, to stand in awe at the animatronic performance of a Disney-thing. "Win-win..." it says. "We're bargaining in good faith!" through amazingly life-like pouty lips. At no time has there been the smallest evidence that these words held any meaning for the faux-man uttering them. Unlike you and me, this seeming triumph of "imagineering" was well paid to behave strangely; were you or your co-worker to be so strange, you would be subject to University discipline and dismissal. It's an odd world after all.
"WHEN THE LEADER LOVES VIRTUE, THE PEOPLE WILL BE VIRTUOUS."
(The Tao Te Ching)
Low-paid workers are, for reasons I can't fathom, held to higher standards of integrity than their superiors at this institution. Indeed, Mr. Chester received a promotion while we were watching him, fascinated. Come to think of it, so did many others in the excelsior reaches of University officialdom. Raises that would dwarf your annual salary. Ah, 'tis a thing to behold, this "upper crust" of the corporate University, enriching itself at our expense, and crying poverty on the castle steps. We should all take pride in the fact that somebody's getting wealthy in the vineyard of Education...often, somebody who never sees a student or a patient, and who carries an incomprehensible title attesting to invisible (and unaccountable) responsibility.
OH, YEAH...THE BARGAINING REPORT
Please visit the link below for the Official Report. Peter Chester petitioned PERB for an impasse declaration fully two weeks before our Oakland meeting on the 18th...just before he went on vacation. We received the PERB notification AFTER the meeting, on the 23rd. Contract "sticking points"--mainly concerned with Wages--were identified in the meeting. They will be raised again in Mediation. Yes, you will get a crappy little raise. No, it won't cost the University a dime...it's coming from the taxpayers. The University's vast resources--the $5.4 billion unrestricted reserves--will not be tapped. We'd like you to have it retroactively from July 1st; the University wants to play with the money until October 1st. We're sure they have their reasons. And we're sure we know what they are:
We learned at this meeting that the University wants to take that three months of funding and use it for the "Equity Increase" for Library Assistants...which would be swell, except the clever University has made it a shell-game--taking the money out of a pool that was going to ALL clerical workers! The equity increase for Library Assistants is supposed to be ADDITIONAL money, specifically allocated for the purpose of raising LA's to a level more in line with the rest of us. (LA's are paid something like 33% below market, the rest of us down a mere 21%.)
CUE will still oppose any increase in your Health Benefits that is not negotiated. Same for parking & vanpool rates. We believe a settlement is still possible without the delay and expense of another Fact Finding process...which the noble University may shrug off as they did last time. The report of the independent Fact Finder proved we were right, but in the end the University ignored it, and no one's longing to repeat that ultimately unenforceable experience.
IN THE END, WE WILL REMEMBER NOT THE WORDS OF OUR ENEMIES, BUT THE
SILENCE OF OUR FRIENDS.
(Martin Luther King)
You're hearing, I'm sure, that the labor movement nationwide is experiencing a "paradigm shift." There is more militancy, more activism, more counter-corporate strategy coming from younger, less patient, less obedient warriors. The same is happening in CUE. And it's very exciting to be part of. But to be honest, I'm sorta tuckered...I'd like YOU to take over. Get involved in the coming CUE Elections, run for office, WIN! It's not that hard, and it may turn out to be the most engaging work you'll ever do at this institution.
I have a small number of dear friends who are usually too busy or something for "politics"...too frightened, I suspect. Afraid of what people will think, afraid for their jobs, their lifestyles, afraid to show up for somebody being abused because that would risk the disfavor of somebody powerful. "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave"? Or "Land of the Bought-and-Paid-For at the Home of the Lowest Price"?
Every human thing in this world is political... where you live, how you eat, the media you're exposed to, where you go to school, the number of liquor stores-billboards-toxic dumps in your neighborhood, how much you're paid, where you can spend it, how you dress, what you drive, which church you attend, how you're treated at work or in public...name something that ISN'T political, and you win the Denial-prize. There is no reward for obedience to a cruel and stupid master except more and more stupid cruelty.
CUE's bargaining experience this year would support a single logical conclusion: that the University of California doesn't care about its clerical workers or what becomes of them and their families. Apparently, it's because WE DON'T COST THEM ENOUGH. Heck, we can do something about that. At an organizing meeting at UCLA yesterday, somebody suggested a bigger, open-ended strike. Imagine that. A worker so angry.
BEAUTIFUL HEROES
I've had only two American heroes in my lifetime: Martin Luther King and Muhammed Ali. Their examples kindled whatever tinder there was in a smallish, vaguely artsy whiteboy from Utah back in the day. Courage was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Still is.
Our secret friends in UC Administration are whispering that the recent season of strikes really shook the big dogs. They didn't think we could do it. And what impressed them the most? The CUE Strike. They didn't think you had it in you.
But you did. And we do.
MEMBERSHIP MATTERS
Joining CUE is cheap, effective, and easy. And it entitles you to vote
and run for office soon in the new statewide and local elections. Don't
like how things are done? Throw the buggers out! Including me! You can
now JOIN CUE ONLINE at:
http://www.cueunion.org/membership_info/membformweb.pdf
Fill out the form, print, sign, and mail or fax it. Whether you're a
member or not, CUE is there for you. If you need help here at UCLA Local
4, visit our website (below) or call our mighty Organizers:
Unity is Intelligent. Fun. And Powerful.
--BT
(Bert Thomas, CUE's UCLA Bargaining Representative)
8.29.2005
Or get your Bubbles at the UCLA website.