On March 16, members of the UAW 2865 bargaining team proposed huge improvements to the current childcare article. This is a demand that would transform the lives of parent workers and their families by making on-campus childcare free to workers year-round, and by increasing the reimbursement program from $1,100/quarter or $1,650/semester to $6,000 and $9,000 respectively. There’s lots of work to be done if we want to win this demand. Fill this form to get involved in the Parents & Caregivers Working Group.
Bargaining Team members also made demands to expand workplace leaves, to remove all student fees, campus fees, and Non-Resident Supplemental Tution (NRST) for academic student employees (ASEs), remove barriers faced by international scholars, and to strengthen protections against the bullying, discrimination, and harassment.
UC took one of their speedy hour-plus caucuses to discuss our proposals. They used this time productively to propose “cosmetic changes” to the union security article (29)… and then to rip the heart out of that article. They followed up with other proposals designed to undermine other rights and protections in the contract. Here are the highlights:
- Their most objectionable proposal was around workload. UCOP told ASEs that as management, they have the sole right to decide how long it takes to perform each and every ASE duty, from grading to lesson planning. They want to remove ASEs’ right to receive back pay for overwork and our right to an expedited grievance process over workload issues (“Too adversarial!”, they said).
- UC negotiators introduced new barriers to union access rights, making it harder for workers to sign up as members.
- They also proposed to remove many protections against unfair discipline and dismissal — they think employees can be disciplined for violations of any “university policy,” including the “True Bruin Values.”
Safe to say, we didn’t go for this.