The University of California has reached a tentative agreement
with the University Council-American Federation of Teachers union
for a contract extension for lecturers, UC officials announced last
week.
The agreement, which was announced June 29 and reached after
only eight weeks of negotiation, extends the contract for the
UC’s 2,500 lecturers through 2010.
Provisions of the agreement include salary range increases and
continued eligibility for merit-based pay increases. The new
contract will also establish additional measures assisting
lecturers seeking reappointment or pursuing a continuing
appointment.
Salary increases are in accordance with the UC’s Higher
Education Compact with Governor Schwarzenegger, said Noel Van
Nyhuis, a spokesman for the UC Office of the President.
Pending approval of the state budget, UC-AFT estimates that UC
lecturers will see salary increases of 2 percent per year for the
next three years. These increases would be on par with those for
tenured UC faculty.
Mike Rotkin, chief negotiator for UC-AFT and a lecturer at UC
Santa Cruz, said that while the union didn’t accomplish all
they had hoped with the new contract, they were pleasantly
surprised with the results.
“We didn’t have high expectations, given the current
economic climate,” Rotkin said.
At the close of negotiations, the length of contracts for
lecturers is the only major item UC-AFT expressed dissatisfaction
with.
The union was hoping to get the UC to agree to formally require
two-year contracts for lecturers, instead of the current one-year
or quarterly contracts, which allow lecturers little time to plan
ahead. The UC agreed only to make a recommendation to its
universities, leaving contract details up to the hiring academic
departments.
Various issues were raised by both sides during the
negotiations, including layoff procedure and duration of employment
by the UC, and appointments and merit review on the side of
UC-AFT.
Acquiring acceptable systems of review for lecturers was one of
the more difficult items for UC-AFT to negotiate, as the UC is very
reluctant to give continuing appointments to lecturers, said Kevin
Roddy, vice-president of legislation for UC-AFT. Roddy said. Only
one quarter of UC lecturers have a post-six year continuing
appointment.
“The UC still thinks of lecturers as temporary
employees,” Roddy said.
Under the old contract, any pre-six year lecturer could be
denied reappointment at any time without any review taking place,
leaving the union with no way to ascertain the fairness of the
release, Roddy said.
The UC-AFT bargaining team is recommending that its members vote
to accept the contract, and the UC has expressed their satisfaction
with the negotiations as well.
“We are very pleased to have reached an agreement that we
believe is fair, recognizes their contributions and offers them
strengthened advancement opportunities,” said Howard Pripas,
UC director of labor relations, in a statement. “We are
especially pleased that we were able to reach an agreement so
swiftly and peacefully.”
UC negotiations with UC-AFT haven’t always been so
expedient. In 2002, after three years without a contract and
reaching a bargaining impasse with the UC, picketing UC lecturers
and supportive tenured professors shut down classes at several UC
campuses during a two-day strike.
Protesters’ major complaint in 2002 was the lack of job
security.
The possibility of another strike wasn’t a factor in the
negotiations, Van Nyhuis said.
UC lecturers will put the proposed contract to a vote later this
month. Both parties will renegotiate salary, workload, and other
specific issues in the contract in October 2006.