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NOTES FROM INSIDE THE BARGAINING BUBBLE #2
by Bert Thomas, UCLA Representative, CUE BARGAINING TEAM
(A personal diary, not the Official Report)
(UC Office of the President, Oakland, August 10-11, 2004)
YOU'LL LAUGH...YOU'LL CRY
I had assumed that negotiations at the Office of the President would be sort of elegant...you know, like treaty discussions at Versailles or something. We met UC's bargaining team in a parking garage...really. "Conference Room C" it's called. On Level E. I'm not making this up.
As reported last month in "Bubble Notes 1", CUE's team came to the table ready to discuss Wages. Our current contract expires next month, September 30. CUE has proposed a 3-year agreement with a 5% pay bump in 2004-05, 7% in 2005-06, and 9% in 2006-07. This would help clerical workers begin to recover some of the 21% pay lag we have sustained since the early '90s, according to UC's own study of pay rates compared to similar workers in similar jobs elsewhere. At the end of 2007, we would still be behind, but not nearly so much.
DAY ONE: "POSTPONE WAGES? EXCUSE ME?"
Our bums had barely hit the chairs before Peter Chester (UC's lead negotiator) announced that he wanted to postpone discussion of Wages till the following day when he expected a couple of his financial-compensation people to arrive. CUE's Chief Negotiator, Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie, immediately called for a team caucus to discuss this. We returned from caucus to propose that we proceed with CUE's presentation on Wages, as planned, and that the other side take notes to be dealt with by their experts the following day...at which point Mr. Chester called for a team caucus on his side.
At 11:30am, UC's team returned from caucus, and accepted our proposal to proceed.
Our Chief Negotiator, Amatullah ("MizzAm"), then delivered an astonishing, passionate case for the 18,000 clerical workers of this university. I regret that it was not recorded, except by our remarkable note-taker, team member MaryJo Kelly of UC Davis (whose high-speed typing and accuracy have already been noted by everyone, including those on the other side). CUE's Amatullah spoke of low pay, understaffing, resultant overwork, arrogant management and the disrespectful treatment accorded UC's hardest working and most productive employees. She compared this pay and treatment to the six-figure salaries, bonuses, and double-digit raises afforded UC's increasingly blind and oblivious "Upper Class" who are compared to "corporate officers" instead of leaders in a public institution of medicine and learning. She spoke of how these fine people and their managerial minions seem to feel entitled to the grand titles and grotesque salaries they have granted themselves because they are somehow superior to low-paid people who do the daily work of the University. She reported the instances of clerical workers having to choose "rent over medicine...food over child-care...second jobs over time with family, forget vacations." It was a magnificent indictment of UC's "two-tiered class structure" and the plight of those who labor in the clerical underclass.
There was nothing to be said after Amatullah's remarks. Nevertheless, UC's Mr. Chester said: "Lunch".
For the rest of the day, CUE's team continued to hammer away at the privilege and perquisites of UC's "anointed" in contrast with the hardship and declining purchasing power of working people represented by CUE. We wanted to be certain that UC's bargainers were not ignorant of the effects of University policy and practice on low-paid workers. It was plain that they preferred not to know. Whether they cared or not became apparent the following day.
DAY TWO: "SHOOT-OUT AT THE OP PARKING GARAGE"
UC's Peter Chester opened the day with presentation of the UC proposal on wages-Zero increase in 2004-05, maybe 3% in '06, maybe 3% in '07...contingent on the outcome of the Governor's "compact". Plus 2 paid "Bonus Days" at the holiday season this year IF the entire agreement with CUE is completed in time for the holidays (meaning in about 60 days, or sometime in November).
Let's see now...that's a 3-year agreement that offers us NOTHING and TWO MAYBES. Plus TWO "BONUS" DAYS if we signed off the whole contract in roughly 60 days. Was this man serious? He said that he was. He said: "We regret that very much...it pains us..."
CUE's Amatullah called a team caucus to consider this remarkable proposal.
TEAM SONG: "SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO"
We remained in caucus from 10:15am till 2:00pm (with a lunch hour) ... preparing a response. Periodically, one of their side would come to knock on our door, inquiring as to when or whether we were planning to come out. Amatullah said we'd let them know. At least some of them wanted to go home.
Have I mentioned that this CUE team is bodacious?
We returned to the bargaining table at 2:00pm, opening with an eloquent letter by Melinda Gandara, member of the Bargaining Team from UC Santa Barbara, who cited UC Regent Velma Montoya's protest of the half-million dollar salaries being granted to virtually anyone who asks in senior management. (The letter/statement is submitted for publication in periodicals and will likely be appended to the OFFICIAL Bargaining Report of this session when it is released.)
The team had prepared flip-charts filled with Information Requests... preliminary answers to which led our teammate Mary Higgins (of UC San Francisco) to begin a course of questioning that had the UC compensation experts on the ropes. It was a lovely thing to witness. In their panic and disarray, they revealed concepts and internal methods that actually contained possible solutions to the Wage problem. At one point, UC's Peter Chester suggested that an administrator's value to the University could only be assessed if he/she were absent. Visiting CUE member, Jackie Bess of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, inquired with some heat whether this meant that clericals might need to be "absent" in order to "demonstrate their value to the University". She actually used the "S-word" (Strike)...and in a bargaining meeting! Much UC silence followed. It was just too shocking, ya see.
Poor Peter Chester. He said at one of many uncomfortable points: "We made you an offer earlier today. You may not like it, but that's our proposal." Members of his own team do not appear to be enjoying this job. These are not bad people; not even Peter. He's just doing what he's paid to do. The fact that he's agreed to do it...well, that's a character issue. I'm sure he's well paid, but it's smarmy work. If it were me, I'd hate to think they found the right guy for the job.
CUE's Amatullah asked for the names of Peter's bosses, so that we could be certain they received CUE's proposals for possible solution of the Wages problem. Here they are, in ascending order:
That's a fearsome pecking order. At least it's shorter than yours and mine. And we may all get a chance to write these people over the next few months.
IN CONCLUSION
We'll see them again next week, August 24th and 25th in Irvine. Probably not in a parking structure again, but who knows?
Please pass this message along to friends and co-workers, especially those who have no email access in their workplaces. And join CUE! Real Membership costs well under a dollar a month for most people. Please don't assume you're a member. Make sure that you're a REAL MEMBER. Call our wonderful busy new Organizer, LIZ CAMPBELL, at her Local 4 office: 310/473-8910.
Blessins,
--BT
18 August 2004