November 9, 2001

Dear President Atkinson,

We, the CUE bargaining team, have asked Sharon Hayden, UC's Chief Negotiator, to give you this letter. We have been bargaining with UC Labor Relations on behalf of 18,000 UC clerical employees since late May. In August, UC offered us 0.9% salary increase with no merits effective 11/1/01, and subsequently increased the "offer" to 1% in the face of an increase in the cost of living in California of 5.5% over the past year. We just learned about the staggering increased costs in our health plans and parking. Consequently, UC clerical staff have to take a dramatic pay cut this year if UC has its way.

This morning we read in the San Francisco Chronicle about the bloated, unconscionable raises being proposed for executive vice chancellors and engineering deans. The proposed increases apparently average over 20% - with the executive Vice Chancellor at UCLA getting an increase of almost 26%. Each of these increases is more than the average annual salary earned by UC clerical employees.

The SF Chronicle article quotes UC spokesman Paul Schwartz: "preserving top-caliber leadership ... is critical to maintaining UC's competitiveness and institutional quality." We represent 18,000 staff employees who are critical to maintaining UC's institutional quality, most of whom live paycheck to paycheck. UC is asking our jurisdiction to sustain a decrease in their standard of living because the University, which has billions in reserves, will not come up with the money for the very modest increases CUE has demanded. We represent 18,000 clerical employees who want desperately to feel appreciated by the institution they work for and who want to feel proud of their jobs. Unfortunately, we are constantly reminded that we are unappreciated, unrecognized, and exploited for the vital daily work that we do.

We request that you urge the Regents to reject these despicable increases for the executive vice chancellors and engineering deans. We implore you to urge these executives, if they truly are "top caliber" leaders, to refuse these increases as long the staff they depend on are going to suffer pay cuts. We beseech you to urge the Regents to give clerical staff the pay raise they deserve, as we are vital to the operation of this university.

Sincerely,

CUE Bargaining Team