Bargaining Bubble #3

NOTES FROM INSIDE THE BARGAINING BUBBLE #3

by Bert Thomas, UCLA Representative, CUE BARGAINING TEAM
(A personal diary, not the Official Report)

(UC Irvine, August 24-25, 2004)

"IT'S NOT A GAME...IT'S A PROCESS."

Thus spake the University at the end of our bargaining session in Irvine on August 25th. Peter Chester had just handed us yet another proposal for three more years of service without guaranteed pay increases, a broad and general sacrifice of CUE/clerical worker rights gained in past contract negotiations, and an offer of two--count 'em, TWO--"Bonus Days" over the coming holidays--one time only, this year only...IF the entire agreement is signed and sealed by some unspecified date in November.

Now, everybody knows that dog won't hunt...ain't no cubes in that tray. They know it. We know it. They know we know it. We can't even agree on "Ground Rules" for these negotiations, fer cryin' out loud. It's utterly disingenuous to propose that the entire agreement be signed off in something like 60 days when every agreement prior to this has taken at least two years. And we are still in the "Demand Explanation" phase. We don't want to take two years. We never, ever, did. But the University continues to overplay its hand...or else it's just not playing with a full deck. It's sometimes hard to tell. It can't be they're daring us to strike, can it? Whose interests would that serve, I wonder.

IT'S ABOUT PAY. AND RESPECT.

There's something terribly wrong with this "process" that looks and feels so much like a humiliating game. I don't know if UC's lead negotiator, Peter Chester, means to insult us with every breath...or why that would serve his and our employer's interest...but that's how it lands on this old long-haired head. And I guess I need to try harder than I have up to now to understand the University's "interests" in proposing things that I, personally, could never agree to. Hell, I couldn't agree to them because I'd be too scared to come back and tell you. You'd key my car and call me a putz. And you'd be right.

Nor do I think Mr. Chester's team can possibly support the burden of shallowness and shame their proposals represent. These people are all quite nice, quite ordinary human beings, quite the same as we are. And in their hearts, they all know they are no more deserving of their handsome compensation packages and two-line job titles than we are of the relative poverty and sweatshop discipline imposed on us by the "caste-system" management of this crypto-corporate University.

MEET THE PARTIES...PEE IN A CAN.

Someone here asked me recently who UC's bargainers are, besides Peter Chester of UCOP (Office of the President). Heck, I don't mind listing them...we're pretty sure they're reading these "Bubbles" same as you, and wouldn't mind seeing their names in print:

Two of them come from UCLA (Campus) Labor Relations, and I'll boast (sorta) that they are the best of the lot--Lynn Thompson and Danny Gray. I fervantly hope, in fact, that they remain on UC's team. They both seem interested and even troubled by the "war stories" our stewards and visiting members relate when they speak at these sessions...in Irvine, for instance, we were regaled with stories from UC Irvine where CUE-represented Police Dispatchers were so understaffed that bathroom breaks were forbidden. So while one Dispatcher was out sick with a bladder infection, the other was "accommodated" by being allowed to pee in a can (with management's knowledge and blessing, apparently). Too much information, my friends? Bargaining ain't pretty. Sometimes you have to go the extra mile...

UC San Francisco sends Susan Wright, (Compensation) and Kelly Sheridan (Labor Relations)...gamely fielding many of the pointed questions of our CUE Bargainer from that campus, Mary Higgins, who's been around longer than anybody in the room and somehow remembers all of the history and many arcane details of funding, legislation and contracts past and present with CUE and other UC worker unions.

Shada Kuba, of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, speaks infrequently but knowledgeably about that particular patch of the University vineyard. Patty Donnelly (UCOP) patiently takes computer notes at the side of Peter Chester. And occasionally, we see UCOP's Ken Robin, a "compensation guy", who shares colorfully about things we always find interesting, like how they might figure out a way to pay us without too much trouble. Finally, there's Ken Ealy of UC Davis, whose campus has been in the forefront of concepts this union favors and applauds...like the AA IV Classification and sensible relations with its CUE local. In Irvine, the UC team was joined by Michelle Quint, of whom we know little. She's pleasant, younger than me...but then everyone is pleasanter and younger than me.

INTEREST-BASED BARGAINING FOR DUMMIES...
ON BOTH SIDES

Details of contract discussions in the Irvine sessions will be set forth in the official Bargaining Report #3 coming out in the next week or so.

But I believe it's important for you to know that this CUE BARGAINING TEAM, under the thoughtful leadership of Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie of UC Berkeley, is a different kind of animal than we've had before. We've waited a little while to see whether the University's bargaining philosophy had changed with its new Lead Negotiator. The University hasn't changed; therefore, we must. No one wants the protracted adversarial gamesmanship that has dragged these negotiations into repeated unprofitable impasse situations in recent years. A good definition of insanity is "to repeat the same behavior expecting a different result."

So we've all committed to--and had training in--something called an "Interest Based Approach" to negotiations. We realize that the University's attitude toward CUE is a shallow, fear-driven opposition to the 18,000 workers who've dared to protest the excesses of manager/supervisor privilege. And our attitude toward them has also been shallow and fear-driven...we've come to feel like wage-slaves, disrespected, abused, and under-paid for the hard daily work we perform. It's been a long time, maybe 30 years, since we were treated as "partners" in this enterprise. Something funky has happened over these increasingly negative decades, and our positions--theirs and ours--have grown uglier and more hostile. It's not our fault. And maybe it's not theirs, either. But without a change of attitudes, we're all going down.

CUE seeks nothing more nor less than PARTNERSHIP in pursuit of what we're calling an "Elegant Outcome".

This cannot be about "power" any longer. Without the University, we don't have a job; without us, they don't have a university. Or a hospital. Both sides must be rigorously truthful. No games. And no insincere "process", either.

Beginning immediately, September 7th at UC San Francisco (the day after Labor Day, of all things) the CUE team has offered to provide the services of Steve Barber, a successful facilitator and trainer in Interest-Based negotiations. He will be charged with the heavy task of trying to get our side and theirs on the same side, with the same interests, the same goals. We honestly don't know what will happen. At the time of this writing, the University's negotiator has not replied. But we're determined to do our best to stop doing what doesn't work in order to try something that might.

STAY TUNED

And JOIN CUE, if you haven't yet. The University needs to see that you're with us. So do we. 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 busy new Organizer, LIZ CAMPBELL, at her Local 4 office number: 310/473-8910.

And I'd be grateful if you could pass this message along to friends and co-workers, especially those who have no email access in their workplaces.

Blessins,

--BT
2 September 04