CUE NEWSLETTER NO. 3
Summer 1996
Affirmative Action...For the Rich and Famous
Thanks in large part to the hard work of CUE members at Los Angeles, Davis, Santa Cruz and Berkeley, UC clericals made up nearly half of the 1600 UC staff who signed a petition to the UC Regents calling for reversal of their July 1995 vote to end affirmative action in student admissions and staff hiring. The petition, initiated by the Staff Coalition for Affirmative Action, was presented to the Regents at their March meeting in San Francisco. On the same day, CUE member Tom Boot was one of several unionists to address a rally at UC Berkeley, at which staff held placards bearing the names of workers from all UC campuses who signed the petition.Regent Ward Connerly, who spearheaded the Regents' attack on affirmative action at UC, is now heading a campaign for the "California Civil Rights Initiative". Civil rights attorney Eva Paterson told the March 14 crowd at Berkeley that the initiative should be titled the "Civil Wrongs Initiative" because it would end affirmative action at the state and local government levels. According to Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal, the CCRI would also constitutionally weaken civil rights for women in discrimination cases.
Under existing affirmative action guidelines for admissions, only qualified applicants are admitted. The March 16 Los Angeles Times reports that several Regents have attempted to secure exceptions to admissions standards for the children of their friends and relatives, even when they were less qualified than other UC applicants. This included one Regent who voted to end affirmative action and who made thirty-two such requests to UCLA.
"The Regents are so dishonest," said Angela Riggio, a CUE member at UCLA, adding that the Times revealed "more than a thousand requests from 114 state lawmakers and other public officials," including requests from Regent and Governor Pete Wilson.
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Do you have equal rights at UC?
Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals are treated as second class citizens in many aspects of daily life, in ways that heterosexuals often never realize because these rights are usually taken for granted. These discrepancies are apparent in the workplace. Even if one is fortunate enough to have a work environment that is not outwardly hostile to homosexuality or bisexuality, discrimination is possible and does take place. Nowhere is this more apparent than in UC's failure to recognize bisexual, lesbian and gay relationships as legitimate.UC claims that it does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. How does this translate into practice? There are many employees on campus who must make hard decisions about facing less than sympathetic supervisors over such basic issues as family leave time. It's one thing to be "tolerant" of lesbian, gay and bisexual employees, but it's another to recognize that their lives include tending to their families: dealing with an ill partner or child, or an adoption issue, or going to a child's school when there is a problem. These things are rights that most take for granted. In each department, a supervisor can act as she or he chooses toward gay, lesbian and bisexual campus employees. This leaves such employees vunerable to unequal treatment, with no recourse for redress.
Some of the rights under the current AFSCME contract which cannot legally be used by domestic partners--gay or straight--are Sick Leave, Family Care and Medical Leave, Death Benefits and Bereavement Leave. In addition, UC's health benefits and retirement programs do not cover domestic partners. We need a union which will not accept contract language which denies equal rights for lesbian, gay and bisexual domestic partners and their families. We need a union which will not just talk the talk but will aggressively demand that UC live up to and enforce its nondiscrimination policies.
Judge says UC's email restrictions are illegal
Last fall, when UC proposed a policy that would restrict staff use of email "to official University business," CUE strongly protested the proposals. We said in part: "Email has been a tremendous boon in our work lives--information is quickly and efficiently disseminated....and this communication is equally available to students, faculty and staff."We also pointed out that the proposed University-wide policy was aimed only at staff. We noted that management already has ways to deal with those who spend too much time on email. The draft policy specifically prohibited unions from using email to communicate with UC staff. We urged the University to abandon the proposal since it would make more problems than it would solve.
Last year, University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) filed a charge with the state Public Employment Relations Board challenging UC's restrictions on use of email. In March, a judge ruled for UPTE, and said UC's policy was "unreasonable and illegal." This is a clear victory for staff and their unions.
UC then issued a new draft of its email policy, which states that the University "...does not wish to routinely inspect or monitor electronic mail or to be the arbiter of its contents." It remains true, however, that email messages can be read and deleted material can be retrieved by management.
While far from perfect, this new draft is far less restrictive. Anyone interested in reading the full text can find it at: http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/policies/email. Or, you can email CUE at clericals@igc.org and we will forward a copy to you. Comments are due by May 20 to: emailpol@ucop.edu. Please send CUE a copy of your comments.
Regents may privatize UCSF hospital: 30,000 jobs at stake
UCSF employees are hearing that management may be planning to sell their jobs off to a private corporation. In November 1995, UCSF and Stanford University issued a joint press release announcing preliminary discussions that began in August 1995 about a merger to, in part, save money. They were talking about combining each institution's hospitals and clinics, which could lead to layoffs, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on Nov. 18, 1995.The story surfaced again in late March. Now UCSF executives are considering forming a private corporation to buy major parts of UCSF and Stanford University Hospital. As has happened at other public-hospitals-turned-private around the country, whatever jobs remain are likely to be non-union. A reconfigured UCSF could become a model for other UC medical centers.
The issue is on the Regents meeting agenda in May, but the public and the press won't be allowed in this "closed" session.
UCSF and the other UC med centers historically have made money for the UC system--UCSF made $50.6 million in profit in 1994, and in the past some of that profit was transferred to help with budget problems. UC has an historic commitment to teaching hospitals, which train future medical personnel and do cutting-edge research in medicine--goals which should be "higher on the agenda than making a buck," according to CUE member Janice Kimball.
With the reduction of funds to county and municipal hospitals, the UC teaching hospitals are now providing care for the poor, so privatization would dramatically affect our communities as well as UC employees' jobs. And contrary to claims of UCSF execs, the campus is financially secure, with several hundred millions of dollars in assets built up over decades of support from California taxpayers. CUE asks, what gives UC executives the right to sell these public assets off?
CUE is working with a coalition of UC labor unions on a joint response. If you want more information or want to help, please contact us.
CUE wants your opinion...
Thanks to all who have responded to our recent survey in which we asked: 1. What do you like most/least about working at UC? 2. What issues do you think are important for a union to focus on at UC? 3. Would you like to be on our mailing list? If you didn't receive our survey and want to respond, please write or email us.
Big union victories at UC
This spring brought huge union victories at UC systemwide. Four thousand UC research professionals chose University Professional and Technical Employees-CWA 9119 as their representative. Medical personnel at UC's teaching hospitals have a chance to vote for the UC Association of Interns and Residents-SEIU 250, which just collected enough authorization cards to qualify for an election in a bargaining unit of 4,000.