UC Merced lecturers decry ‘unfair’ practices, joining colleagues statewide in strike
Lecturers at UC Merced are joining their fellow instructors statewide in a labor strike after long-standing complaints University of California Office of the President isn’t bargaining with instructors in good faith, according to representatives of UC-AFT, the labor union that represents lecturers and librarians across the UC system.
Scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, the strike comes after 91% of UC-AFT’s voting members voted to authorize the upcoming labor action in a meeting last week.
About 80 lecturers at UC Merced are expected to participate, say labor organizers.
“We’re trying to signal to management that they need to bargain with us in good faith,” said Shannon Garland, a representative of UC-AFT. “This is the first time we’ve gone on strike since 2002. This isn’t something we’re used to doing.”
A representative of UCOP responded on Monday night to UC-AFT’s planned strike, saying in a statement the university is “very disappointed” over the union’s decision to strike.
“Withholding instruction is grossly unfair to our students and a strike does not move us closer to a contract,” the announcement read. “The union’s unfair labor practice claims against UC are neither supported by the facts nor any finding by the California Public Employment Relations Board.”
The statement from UCOP went on to say the office proposed substantial pay increases, a more stable employment system for lecturers, lecturer appointments at the end of each term, great job expectation transparency and solutions for addressing workload concerns.
UCOP scheduled two full-day sessions Monday and Tuesday in an attempt to reach a fair five-year agreement.
“UC is committed to providing our lecturers with a good, fair contract, but we need the union’s partnership,” the announcement said.
“Our proposals respond to the union’s priority issues and recognize the essential role lecturers play in educating our students.”
Unfair labor practice allegations
The UC-AFT filed seven unfair labor practice charges against the University of California in the last 20 months, organizers said, ranging from repudiation of contract terms to excluding certain lecturers from bargaining.
“There is a long history and a pattern of bad faith negotiations by UCOP,” said Stan Porter, a lecturer at UC Merced whose focus is writing.
“The most egregious are just not doing what they’re supposed to in those negotiations and not following the rules that have been laid out for both sides.”
Those rules are outlined by the Higher Education Employee Relations Act, which establishes collective bargaining rights for college and university employees.
The HEERA defines unfair labor practices as violations of collective bargaining in good faith, unilateral changes to policies that have to be the subject of bargaining, repudiating collective bargaining agreements and relationships and threatening employees for participating in protected union activities.
Paid family leave among key issues
Union leaders with the UC-AFT filed two new charges against the UC recently, alleging those in UC management failed to negotiate with employees in good faith.
At issue is what strike organizers allege is a refusal to follow statutory impasse procedures and management’s refusal to bargain over paid family leave, which organizers said is a required component of bargaining when negotiating contract renewal.
“We’re shocked the university refuses to negotiate over paid family leave,” said Shannon Garland, a representative of UC-AFT Local 18 in Merced.
The strike comes just a month after UCOP officials are accused of refusing to bargain over contract negotiations, which have been ongoing for three years, according to strike organizers.
Contract negotiations between the UC-AFT and UCOP often start a year before expiring, and are usually resolved by the time it’s time to renew or terminate a contract. Members of the UC-AFT said that time came and went, and it has now been two years since new contract terms were expected to be nailed down.
“They refuse to bargain with us,” Garland said. “That’s illegal because we have to bargain on these kinds of terms. In October, they broke our agreed-upon mediation process. They decided to unilaterally break that process.”
Did UC try to bypass negotiations?
The complaints Garland and others have against UCOP officials include that UCOP representatives allegedly attempted to bypass negotiations by sending emails out to lecturers directly, telling them they would get a $500 signing bonus if they signed their contracts within four days.
“They made an offer to our negotiating team and instead of our negotiating team digesting that, negotiating it, discussing it, our team didn’t have the chance,” Porter said. “The UC sent that out directly in an email to the members through the school’s email and basically dangled that carrot of $500 if we signed by the 25th of last month.”
According to Porter, “exploding offers” like the one the UC sent directly to lecturers aren’t indicative of good faith negotiations. When UC-AFT representatives tried to negotiate that offer, UCOP refused to negotiate, saying the terms of the offer had already expired.
“They were trying to cause discord and distrust amongst our members to get us to try to implode,” Porter said. “But you’re dealing with a lot of smart people here. You’re dealing with people with PhDs and master’s degrees who are very learned and can see through things like this.”
In the seven charges, the union has also accused the UC of repudiation of mutually-agreed-to contract terms for online instruction, refusal to bargain over settlement terms after withholding employee retirement contributions, refusal to bargain over lecturer layoffs at UC Davis, excluding some lecturers from the bargaining unit at UC Santa Cruz and refusal to bargain over COVID conditions for K-12 teachers represented by UC-AFT.
“All of this summed up is if you don’t play by the rules, if one side is trying to cheat, it really kind of taints the entire system and taints the trust for both parties and the trust the employees have with their employer,” Porter said. “It really destroys that relationship.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.