Technical workers win $7 million in back pay
Judge rules UC withheld raises to stop unionization
By Michael Angell
Daily Bruin Contributor
A union representing UC technical and administrative employees
was awarded $7 million from the university. Technical employees won
the sum after they sued the university for not delivering on a 1994
promise raise their salaries.
A state administrative judge ruled on Jan. 12 that the
University of California held back the raises in order to prevent
technical employees from joining University Professional and
Technical Employees (UPTE), a labor union.
"The university has to pay through the nose for its actions of
retaliation," said Cliff Fried, president of the professional and
technical employee union at UCLA. "(The lawsuit) proves that you
can fight city hall."
The settlement, which includes $6 million in back pay and $1
million in interest, will be distributed among 3,800 employed as
lab assistants, computer operators and animal resource
technicians.
Those employees and others were promised a 3 percent raise in
July 1994, contingent only upon the availability of state funds.
The state legislature announced that the funds were available for
the pay raises in October of 1994.
At the same time, UC technical employees were voting to
unionize. During the voting process, UCLA Assistant Vice Chancellor
Stanley McKnight wrote a letter to all 800 technical employees at
UCLA stating that the upcoming raises were now contingent upon
union membership.
In the letter McKnight stated, "Your receipt of this anticipated
salary increase would become dependent on the process of contract
negotiations if CWA/UPTE wins the election which is being conducted
at this time."
After technical employees voted to be represented by University
Professional and Technical Employees in relations with the
university, the University of California withheld the wage
increases from technical employees by claiming that the raises were
now subject to negotiation.
"We did believe that those wages required negotiations," said
Gayle Cieszkiewicz, the UC’s associate director of labor
relations.
"We believe that we were clear that wages were not
promised."
Cieszkiewicz, who heads negotiating with unions, said that
employees who were not part of a union would receive automatic
raises. In contrast, union employees would have their raises
negotiated.
But union leaders contended that since the increases were
promised before the union was elected to represent the employees,
the raises should have been given to union members as well. Fried
called the promised raise "a status quo issue which (the University
of California) had no right to withhold."
The judge sided with the union by ruling that the raises were
promised before the employees began union representation and
therefore were not subject to negotiation.
Libby Sayre, the union’s statewide representative, said the
university’s attempts to bust the union seem contradictory to a
university’s mission of free inquiry and open debate.
"It’s shocking for a public institution to be found guilty of
retaliatory action against a union," Sayre said. "It’s a big black
eye for a public university."
University officials said they plan to hand out the back pay
awards.
"The university plans to appeal the decision," Cieszkiewicz
said. "We would like to put the pay issue behind us and just deal
exclusively with legal issues."
However, Sayre believed the University of California is paying
out the money now so they will not have to pay more interest at a
later defeat.
Furthermore, while the University of Califoria appeals the
decision, it will not have to post a "cease and desist" order on
campus property. Sayre believed the university wants to avoid a
public rebuke of having a posted order saying the University of
California must stop retaliating against the union.
"If university does not appeal, they have to post the order
after a hearing in unfair labor practice case," Sayre said. "They
don’t want to post that order."Comments to
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