Coalition of University Employees

Excellent post from Remaking the University

On the use of furlough days, all UCOP had to do was keep quiet. Why couldn't it?

Faculty around the system spent weeks discussing whether 6 or 10 or some other number of their up to 26 days of furlough might be applied to instruction, and Academic Council's August 5th statement on furlough implementation recommended that 6 furlough days be assigned to days of instruction and that up to 10 be allowed. Council's recommendation rests on longstanding faculty obligations to partition their workload among teaching, research and service according to their own professional judgment in formal consultation with their department, the Senate, and immediate administrators (faculty are responsible for "approval of course content and manner of instruction" APM-015). Council's recommendation was also in compliance with APM-005 (via President Robert Sproul in 1935), which states that the planning and committee supervision and reporting of an individual's workload does not violate academic freedom if the plan is "reasonable" and "the plan has come into being through the democratic means of discussion and mutual give and take, within the Faculty, rather than arbitrarily imposed from without."

A CORRECTION: FROM SHARED GOVERNANCE TO COLLECTIVE ACTION

An Open Letter to UC Faculty

August 31, 2009

Dear Colleagues,

We are grateful for Provost Pitts’ letter of 21 August—sent at the opening of a late summer weekend, with unimpeachably cowardly timing—for clarifying certain matters. Foremost among them is the farce of shared governance, in distinction to emergency powers. It is now finally inarguable that the polling of the faculty on significant matters is a fig leaf for the will of the Chancellors and the Office of the President. We stand corrected: shared governance is merely the polite name for emergency powers.

The implementation of the Regents’ furlough plan—approved on the same day as the President’s emergency powers—was presented to faculty as a process to be worked out at the discretion of each campus. On July 29, the Academic Council, representing the Academic Senates of all ten campuses, voted unanimously for systemwide implementation of at least six instruction-day furloughs over the academic year, with permission for campuses to have up to ten such days.

This recommendation—based on the expressly stated will of the faculty—was summarily rejected by the Chancellors and the Office of the President.

The reason for this unilateral decision is clear: the administration seeks to evade public accountability for the manner in which it has managed the budget crisis. It was the “optics” of the Senate Council’s recommendation that were judged untenable. The Office of the President has failed to arrive at a plan that would protect the interests of both students and workers. It wishes to disguise the harm this failure has done to the University’s mission. Or better: it seeks to shift the blame for this failure to the faculty, should we be so bold as to hold the President accountable to the consequences of his own plan. Toward this evasion, UCOP has flagrantly erased the difference between a furlough and a paycut, presenting the latter in the guise of the former.

Local 3 Bargaining Report

The CUE Bargaining Team met with UC on August 26 - 28 at the Office of the President at 300 Lakeside Drive in Oakland.

I would like to thank the 4 members of the Berkeley campus that came over; your support is greatly appreciated:  Ute Rupp, Michelle Good, Elena Zaslavsky and Linda Morgan; and Loys Everett from UCOP.

During the session the team worked on and gave proposals to UC for the Health and Safety (Art. 8) and Layoff (Art. 13) articles.  The CUE team also engaged in more questions with the UC team regarding the Salary Reduction and Furlough Plan.

We are making every attempt to try and gain certain guarantees in regards to the program and its effects, but have been unable thus far to get a guarantee of no layoffs during the life of the program.  It is clear to us that even with a guarantee of no layoffs in relation to the salary reduction/furlough program; UC can and will find other reasons to lay off its employees.

Vote NO! to Mark Yudof and his polices. Rather than using the numerous reserves and resources of UC, Yudof proposes tuition hikes and devastating cuts to the teaching, research and vital services on campuses. UC deserves leadership working to maintain it's mission, not destroy it. Make your voice heard and vote “No-Confidence” in Yudof!

VOTING TIMES AND LOCATIONS:

Agenda:

1.      Joint plans with other unions regarding "no confidence" (discussion
  leader:      Kathy Renfro) 15 minutes - 12:00 - 12:15

2.      Proposed reorganization of the Organized Research Units (ORUs) (discussion
       leader:  Elinor Levine)  15 minutes - 12:15 - 12:30
       -  Those members impacted by the proposed reorganization are welcomed and

The Bargaining Team met with UC on August 13 and 14th on the Riverside campus and more than twenty Riverside CUEsters came to support and observe over the two day period.  They asked many insightful questions and gave their testimonies to UC, which definitely made an impact on the team.

This is a fiscal crisis for the state, not the university.  In September CUE will be launching, "UC's Hidden Wealth," and presentations/Town Hall meetings will be scheduled across the state to enlighten and educate employees of the $5.3 billion in unrestricted funds that UC currently has.  The crisis that we are in exists because  UC continues to drain the state funds (19900 funds) by giving that money to its executives, (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/aar/comp.html )and senior managers, as observed by looking at the stipends, raises and bonuses  given out the same day as the Regents voted on J2, seen at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul09/j2.pdf.