Thursday, December 20, 2007
Bargaining Update #2-- December 19, 2007
Library Bargaining Update
December 20, 2007
The UC-AFT Library Negotiating Team met for our first bargaining session with the University yesterday, December 19, 2007 at the Office of the President in Oakland. Following introductions of the members of the two teams, the UC-AFT explained why we had taken the extraordinary step of sending a letter of concern about the University Administration's initial proposal to our members, the ALA, UC President Dynes and Vice President Judy Boyette, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the California media. Making clear that our members may have misinterpreted the intent of the Administration, we voiced the wide-spread dismay among our members over proposals that at least appear to be moving toward a deprofessionalization of Unit 17 Librarians. At the same time, we made it very clear that we are prepared for serious and good faith bargaining with the Administration.
During the rest of the day, each of the two parties at the table presented their initial proposals for changes to Article 1: Recognition, Article 2: Discrimination, and Article 3: Professional Activities and Development. The University Administration presented their proposal for changes to Article 4: Process of Merit Increase, Promotion, and Career Status. After each side presented and explained their proposals, the other side asked questions to clarify the intent of and motivation for each proposed change.
The discussion was relatively informal and cordial. It is clear that many of the Articles are interrelated and it will not be possible to begin the serious give and take of bargaining until both sides understand how the proposals for the various articles relate to each other. It is still too early to have much of a sense of how bargaining will shape up, but the Administration team attempted to make it very clear that they are not intending to "deprofessionalize" Librarians or change the status of Librarians as academic employees. They are attempting to create "an abbreviated" review process for some types of reviews, but were quick to assure the UC-AFT team that even this abbreviated process would include some form of peer review. Whether the proposed changes to the review process indeed represent a threat to the professional status of librarians will only become fully clear with further discussion and the exchange of counter-proposals.
The implications of the University's initial proposal to replace the current step system for salaries with a new range system will also only become clearer with further discussionand when we see how these proposed changes relate to the salary article. Although our work yesterday was confined to clarifying what the proposals mean and how they might work in practice, both sides reserved the right to reject the conceptual approach embodied in the proposed changes once we are clearer on their implications.
The UC-AFT agreed to further clarify what we meant by adding "family status" to the list protected classes in the article on discrimination.
We have many more articles to go through just with the initial presentation from each side and questions for clarification before we begin serious bargaining and the exchange of counter-proposals. We did agree on an impressive list of dates for future bargaining - which signals the serious intent of both parties to work hard until we have an agreement we can present to our members in Unit 17.
The following are our tentative bargaining dates and locations:
Monday, January 14 at UCI 10-5
Wednesday, January 23 at UCOP (in Oakland) 10-5
Friday, February 1 at UCOP 10-4
Monday, February 4 at UCI 10-5
Friday, February 22 at UCOP 10-4
Monday, March 3 at UCI 10-5
Wednesday, March 12 at UCOP 10-5
Thursday, March 20 at either UCI or UCSD
Monday, March 31 at UCOP 10-5 (or whenever we can wrap up the MOU if we are close.
I want to thank the Negotiating Team members for their dedication and a successful first day of bargaining.
The Negotiating Team includes:
Mike Rotkin, Chief Negotiator
Harrison Decker, UCB
Ken Firestein, UCD
Michelle Jacobs, UCLA
Mitchell Brown, UCI
Steve Mitchell, UCR
Chimene Tucker, UCSB
Ken Lyons, UCSC
Karen Sawislak, Exec. Dir, UC-AFT
Miki Goral, Chief Negotiator Emerita
The UC Negotiating Team includes the following individuals:
Deanna Dudley, Chief Negotiator, UCOP Labor Relations
Myron Okada, UCOP Labor Relations
Mark Westlye, UCOP Academic Advancement
Debra Harrington, UCB Labor Relations
Elizabeth Leavitt, UCB Academic Personnel
Kathleen van den Heuvel, Director of UCB (Boalt) Law Library
Kate McGirr, UCSC AUL
David Rios, UCR AUL
Deborah Sunday, UCI AUL
Lori Trofemuk, UCSD Labor Relations
We will issue bargaining updates after each session and consult regularly with the larger Bargaining Committee (two Librarians from each campus) about any major changes from our initial proposals or any movement toward the University's proposals.
December 20, 2007
The UC-AFT Library Negotiating Team met for our first bargaining session with the University yesterday, December 19, 2007 at the Office of the President in Oakland. Following introductions of the members of the two teams, the UC-AFT explained why we had taken the extraordinary step of sending a letter of concern about the University Administration's initial proposal to our members, the ALA, UC President Dynes and Vice President Judy Boyette, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the California media. Making clear that our members may have misinterpreted the intent of the Administration, we voiced the wide-spread dismay among our members over proposals that at least appear to be moving toward a deprofessionalization of Unit 17 Librarians. At the same time, we made it very clear that we are prepared for serious and good faith bargaining with the Administration.
During the rest of the day, each of the two parties at the table presented their initial proposals for changes to Article 1: Recognition, Article 2: Discrimination, and Article 3: Professional Activities and Development. The University Administration presented their proposal for changes to Article 4: Process of Merit Increase, Promotion, and Career Status. After each side presented and explained their proposals, the other side asked questions to clarify the intent of and motivation for each proposed change.
The discussion was relatively informal and cordial. It is clear that many of the Articles are interrelated and it will not be possible to begin the serious give and take of bargaining until both sides understand how the proposals for the various articles relate to each other. It is still too early to have much of a sense of how bargaining will shape up, but the Administration team attempted to make it very clear that they are not intending to "deprofessionalize" Librarians or change the status of Librarians as academic employees. They are attempting to create "an abbreviated" review process for some types of reviews, but were quick to assure the UC-AFT team that even this abbreviated process would include some form of peer review. Whether the proposed changes to the review process indeed represent a threat to the professional status of librarians will only become fully clear with further discussion and the exchange of counter-proposals.
The implications of the University's initial proposal to replace the current step system for salaries with a new range system will also only become clearer with further discussionand when we see how these proposed changes relate to the salary article. Although our work yesterday was confined to clarifying what the proposals mean and how they might work in practice, both sides reserved the right to reject the conceptual approach embodied in the proposed changes once we are clearer on their implications.
The UC-AFT agreed to further clarify what we meant by adding "family status" to the list protected classes in the article on discrimination.
We have many more articles to go through just with the initial presentation from each side and questions for clarification before we begin serious bargaining and the exchange of counter-proposals. We did agree on an impressive list of dates for future bargaining - which signals the serious intent of both parties to work hard until we have an agreement we can present to our members in Unit 17.
The following are our tentative bargaining dates and locations:
Monday, January 14 at UCI 10-5
Wednesday, January 23 at UCOP (in Oakland) 10-5
Friday, February 1 at UCOP 10-4
Monday, February 4 at UCI 10-5
Friday, February 22 at UCOP 10-4
Monday, March 3 at UCI 10-5
Wednesday, March 12 at UCOP 10-5
Thursday, March 20 at either UCI or UCSD
Monday, March 31 at UCOP 10-5 (or whenever we can wrap up the MOU if we are close.
I want to thank the Negotiating Team members for their dedication and a successful first day of bargaining.
The Negotiating Team includes:
Mike Rotkin, Chief Negotiator
Harrison Decker, UCB
Ken Firestein, UCD
Michelle Jacobs, UCLA
Mitchell Brown, UCI
Steve Mitchell, UCR
Chimene Tucker, UCSB
Ken Lyons, UCSC
Karen Sawislak, Exec. Dir, UC-AFT
Miki Goral, Chief Negotiator Emerita
The UC Negotiating Team includes the following individuals:
Deanna Dudley, Chief Negotiator, UCOP Labor Relations
Myron Okada, UCOP Labor Relations
Mark Westlye, UCOP Academic Advancement
Debra Harrington, UCB Labor Relations
Elizabeth Leavitt, UCB Academic Personnel
Kathleen van den Heuvel, Director of UCB (Boalt) Law Library
Kate McGirr, UCSC AUL
David Rios, UCR AUL
Deborah Sunday, UCI AUL
Lori Trofemuk, UCSD Labor Relations
We will issue bargaining updates after each session and consult regularly with the larger Bargaining Committee (two Librarians from each campus) about any major changes from our initial proposals or any movement toward the University's proposals.
Friday, December 14, 2007
UC-AFT response to UC opening proposals
To Unit 17 librarians:
UC libraries are long-standing centers of excellence that deliver critical support to faculty, students, and the public. UC librarians stand at the core of the research and teaching mission of the University. Yet based on what can be gleaned from its initial proposals in the successor bargaining that has just begun, the University now appears determined to undermine the academic status, economic security, and union protections of its librarians.
One normally expects to see sharp contrasts between an employer’s initial bargaining proposals and those of the union. This is part of the way the bargaining process works. Still, those initial proposals should communicate the respective parties’ general goals and concerns. The administration’s initial proposals for the Unit 17 contract have caused surprise and alarm among librarians across the system. They seem designed to de-professionalize librarians by radically increasing management discretion and reducing or eliminating librarians’ contractual rights to full and fair union representation, shared governance in appointments and reviews, and equitable compensation and professional development support.
Why are librarians concerned?
Violation of right to representation. The administration’s proposal for Article 1 is an illegal subversion of the UC-AFT’s statutory right to represent UC’s professional librarians, and of librarians’ right to be represented. It is extremely troubling to see an initial University initial proposal for Article 1 that violates state law governing the collective bargaining process.
Virtual elimination of peer review. The administration’s proposals for Article 4 and the deletion of most of Article 28 would effectively eliminate the peer review process as such, substituting evaluation procedures that include Unit 17 librarians’ participation but which are almost entirely controlled by management. Note that currently the peer review committee is already advisory, and its decisions can be overturned. But under the proposed new system, review committees would no longer be required to have a majority of represented Unit 17 librarians, they apparently would have no say in ordinary merit decisions that do not involve promotion, career status, or acceleration, and they would receive no notice or opportunity to comment if their recommendations were not followed.
Elimination of the salary scale. The replacement of the salary scale by salary ranges would give nearly total discretion to administrators regarding individual advancement. What is currently a predictable though not certain progress through the steps would be subject to the decisions of management with little or no accountability. Some but not all associate and full librarians would receive a one-time 1.5% raise when they are initially put on the new system. The proposals do not include any other raises, nor do they indicate when librarians would be eligible for promotions.
Raises contingent and discretionary. Even these small raises would be contingent on state funding. Worse yet, any annual COLAs and merit raises would be contingent on state funding each year; 75% of funding for salary increases would be used for merits while leaving only 25% for COLAs; furthermore, the amount of any individual merit raise would be entirely at the discretion of management.
In all areas, management would exercise enormously greater control, and librarians’ rights and opportunities would be radically reduced. The opportunities for management abuse of discretion would increase dramatically.
In response to the University’s posting of their initial proposals on December 4, 2007, the UC-AFT Bargaining Committee has heard from unprecedented numbers of librarians throughout the UC system. These librarians are adamant that the union not even consider moving in the direction that the UC appears to be proposing. UC-AFT intends to represent the will of its members in this regard. It is the union’s hope that by the time face-to-face negotiations begins on December 19, 2007, UC will be ready to discuss a new MOU that has some hope of being ratified by the membership of the librarian unit.
The librarian unit faces serious challenges in regard to salary, workload, and professional support. The union has entered these successor negotiations in good faith and is prepared to work with the University to ensure that work conditions are such that UC can support and retain excellent librarians. Unfortunately, the University’s initial proposals have made us question the good faith of the University. Indeed, to achieve managerial “flexibility,” the Administration appears to be eager to dismantle the professional status and protections that in the past have made the University of California a destination workplace for the very best academic librarians. This is a dangerous path not only for librarians and the library, but for the entire University.
__________
Mike Rotkin
UC-AFT Unit 17 Chief Negotiator
--------
Please review our summary of the administration’s proposals below. Full texts of both the administration’s and the union’s proposals are posted online at
http://atyourservice.ucop.edu/news/general/0712_heera-notice.html
The University’s proposals are as follows:
Article 1D. Eliminate current requirements that they negotiate with the union decisions to move an individual or librarian’s position in or out of the bargaining unit.
Article 4.A.1. Change the way members of review committees are appointed. Currently, on many campuses, CAPA or CAP members are chosen by the local LAUC Executive Board, usually subject to administrative approval. Under the new system proposed by management, an administrator would choose committee members from a list of nominations made by the union.
Article 4.A.1. Reduce the minimum number of Unit 17 members on review committees from the current “majority” to “at least half of the membership.”
Article 4.C.1.a. Replace salary steps with salary ranges and replace the current process for merit reviews that do not involve promotion, career status, or accelerated reviews with an “abbreviated evaluation.” The apparent intention here is to eliminate any peer review from decisions about merit review.
Article 4.C.1.c. Pool together “all salary increase dollars” received from the state “each year and distribute [those dollars] as follows to librarians in the unit: 25% will be used for COLA adjustments every year and 75'% will be used for merit increases. Merit increase amounts will be awarded at the sole discretion of the University.” That is, all COLAs and merit raises would be contingent on state funding; amounts of individual merit raises would be entirely at the discretion of administrators.
Article 4.C.18. Eliminate the requirement that the review committee of receive notice of and an opportunity to comment on a University official’s review decision that goes against the committee’s recommendation.
Article 12. Increase the minimum salary for an assistant librarian to $45,000, for an associate librarian to $50,000, and for a full librarian to $69,000 with a 1.5% increase for former associate librarians IV-VII and for full librarians II-VII. No other salary levels are specified and the existing rank/step table has been stricken. Raises would be contingent on “receipt of full funding in the approved state budget.”
Article 28: Eliminate LAUC’s historic role in peer review.
UC libraries are long-standing centers of excellence that deliver critical support to faculty, students, and the public. UC librarians stand at the core of the research and teaching mission of the University. Yet based on what can be gleaned from its initial proposals in the successor bargaining that has just begun, the University now appears determined to undermine the academic status, economic security, and union protections of its librarians.
One normally expects to see sharp contrasts between an employer’s initial bargaining proposals and those of the union. This is part of the way the bargaining process works. Still, those initial proposals should communicate the respective parties’ general goals and concerns. The administration’s initial proposals for the Unit 17 contract have caused surprise and alarm among librarians across the system. They seem designed to de-professionalize librarians by radically increasing management discretion and reducing or eliminating librarians’ contractual rights to full and fair union representation, shared governance in appointments and reviews, and equitable compensation and professional development support.
Why are librarians concerned?
Violation of right to representation. The administration’s proposal for Article 1 is an illegal subversion of the UC-AFT’s statutory right to represent UC’s professional librarians, and of librarians’ right to be represented. It is extremely troubling to see an initial University initial proposal for Article 1 that violates state law governing the collective bargaining process.
Virtual elimination of peer review. The administration’s proposals for Article 4 and the deletion of most of Article 28 would effectively eliminate the peer review process as such, substituting evaluation procedures that include Unit 17 librarians’ participation but which are almost entirely controlled by management. Note that currently the peer review committee is already advisory, and its decisions can be overturned. But under the proposed new system, review committees would no longer be required to have a majority of represented Unit 17 librarians, they apparently would have no say in ordinary merit decisions that do not involve promotion, career status, or acceleration, and they would receive no notice or opportunity to comment if their recommendations were not followed.
Elimination of the salary scale. The replacement of the salary scale by salary ranges would give nearly total discretion to administrators regarding individual advancement. What is currently a predictable though not certain progress through the steps would be subject to the decisions of management with little or no accountability. Some but not all associate and full librarians would receive a one-time 1.5% raise when they are initially put on the new system. The proposals do not include any other raises, nor do they indicate when librarians would be eligible for promotions.
Raises contingent and discretionary. Even these small raises would be contingent on state funding. Worse yet, any annual COLAs and merit raises would be contingent on state funding each year; 75% of funding for salary increases would be used for merits while leaving only 25% for COLAs; furthermore, the amount of any individual merit raise would be entirely at the discretion of management.
In all areas, management would exercise enormously greater control, and librarians’ rights and opportunities would be radically reduced. The opportunities for management abuse of discretion would increase dramatically.
In response to the University’s posting of their initial proposals on December 4, 2007, the UC-AFT Bargaining Committee has heard from unprecedented numbers of librarians throughout the UC system. These librarians are adamant that the union not even consider moving in the direction that the UC appears to be proposing. UC-AFT intends to represent the will of its members in this regard. It is the union’s hope that by the time face-to-face negotiations begins on December 19, 2007, UC will be ready to discuss a new MOU that has some hope of being ratified by the membership of the librarian unit.
The librarian unit faces serious challenges in regard to salary, workload, and professional support. The union has entered these successor negotiations in good faith and is prepared to work with the University to ensure that work conditions are such that UC can support and retain excellent librarians. Unfortunately, the University’s initial proposals have made us question the good faith of the University. Indeed, to achieve managerial “flexibility,” the Administration appears to be eager to dismantle the professional status and protections that in the past have made the University of California a destination workplace for the very best academic librarians. This is a dangerous path not only for librarians and the library, but for the entire University.
__________
Mike Rotkin
UC-AFT Unit 17 Chief Negotiator
--------
Please review our summary of the administration’s proposals below. Full texts of both the administration’s and the union’s proposals are posted online at
http://atyourservice.ucop.edu/news/general/0712_heera-notice.html
The University’s proposals are as follows:
Article 1D. Eliminate current requirements that they negotiate with the union decisions to move an individual or librarian’s position in or out of the bargaining unit.
Article 4.A.1. Change the way members of review committees are appointed. Currently, on many campuses, CAPA or CAP members are chosen by the local LAUC Executive Board, usually subject to administrative approval. Under the new system proposed by management, an administrator would choose committee members from a list of nominations made by the union.
Article 4.A.1. Reduce the minimum number of Unit 17 members on review committees from the current “majority” to “at least half of the membership.”
Article 4.C.1.a. Replace salary steps with salary ranges and replace the current process for merit reviews that do not involve promotion, career status, or accelerated reviews with an “abbreviated evaluation.” The apparent intention here is to eliminate any peer review from decisions about merit review.
Article 4.C.1.c. Pool together “all salary increase dollars” received from the state “each year and distribute [those dollars] as follows to librarians in the unit: 25% will be used for COLA adjustments every year and 75'% will be used for merit increases. Merit increase amounts will be awarded at the sole discretion of the University.” That is, all COLAs and merit raises would be contingent on state funding; amounts of individual merit raises would be entirely at the discretion of administrators.
Article 4.C.18. Eliminate the requirement that the review committee of receive notice of and an opportunity to comment on a University official’s review decision that goes against the committee’s recommendation.
Article 12. Increase the minimum salary for an assistant librarian to $45,000, for an associate librarian to $50,000, and for a full librarian to $69,000 with a 1.5% increase for former associate librarians IV-VII and for full librarians II-VII. No other salary levels are specified and the existing rank/step table has been stricken. Raises would be contingent on “receipt of full funding in the approved state budget.”
Article 28: Eliminate LAUC’s historic role in peer review.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Bargaining Update #1 -- December 3, 2007
Librarian Bargaining Update #1
December 3, 2007
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that governs the working conditions and compensation of Unit 17 librarians at the University of California is about to be re-negotiated. On December 3, 2007, opening proposals were exchanged between the UC Administration and the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) on behalf of the librarians. The UC-AFT is proposing to open and seek improvements in about half of the articles in the current MOU; however, of primary concern are librarian salaries, workload, and support for professional activities .
After a number of years in which the librarian unit has had only minimal success at the bargaining table, there is a new militancy among librarians, who are better organized and have a clearer set of bargaining goals than in many years. We have recently held labor-management meetings on the local campuses that have uncovered a common set of concerns among librarians throughout the UC system. Although conditions do vary widely among campuses, there are clear and common concerns about issues of compensation, workload, and professional development opportunities. Librarians across the system have been meeting at the local level to plan our bargaining strategy and clarify our opening proposals to the University.
We have held multi-campus meetings in Berkeley and at UCLA and had conference calls among librarians to make sure that our approach to bargaining this time is unified and supported by the vast majority of librarians in the UC system. In each of these meetings, the local campuses were well represented by their respective librarians. The UC-AFT as an organization, and its leadership and staff, have committed to put its resources behind the effort to make major advances at the bargaining table during the current negotiations.
Below, we discuss in some more detail the following topics: 1) the issues we are raising in this round of bargaining; 2) the structure of our negotiating team and the larger bargaining committee which will guide its work; and 3) where we are going from here.
UC-AFT Opening Proposals
The UC-AFT is seeking significant increases in salaries because UC librarians have fallen far behind their colleagues in the California State University system and even behind many community college librarians in pay. Consequently, the opening salary proposal sets forth a new salary scale based on the minimum of the range in comparable titles for CSU librarians. Under this proposal, the minimum annual salary for Assistant, Associate, and full Librarians would be as follows: $55,944; $61,678; and $82,650.
The issues of salary and workload are intertwined. On many UC campuses, low librarian salaries have resulted in recruitment and retention problems. In addition, budget cuts have led to reductions in the numbers of library assistants and library workers represented by other unions or lower-level management positions. The result is increasing workloads for the remaining Unit 17 librarians who often take on the work previously done by other library workers. The increased workload, in turn, exacerbates the retention problem, as additional librarians seek better paid and less stressful employment elsewhere, leaving even more vacancies to be filled by the overworked librarians who remain.
The current librarian MOU has no workload article, perhaps because in the past librarians believed that their professional status and membership in LAUC would provide them with reasonable solutions to workload problems outside of the MOU and the union bargaining process. However, time has demonstrated that, like other professional units at UC, only a strong, enforceable collective labor agreement can provide librarians with a mechanism to respond to workload abuses when short-staffing and other problems result in librarians taking on additional, uncompensated duties for their missing colleagues. We have drafted an entirely new Workload article to address some of these serious problems.
One of the more common outcomes of staff shortages is that librarians are doing increasing amounts of routine work in the library and have less and less time for activities related to their professional development. In addition to making the work less challenging and satisfying in professional terms, this is then held against librarians when they go up for periodic reviews and consideration for merit increases.
As a result, the UC-AFT is also opening and seeking improvement in several articles related to professional development, the use of temporary workers, and temporary assignments, many of which last for years and involve significant uncompensated or under-compensated work. We are working to create incentives for the University administration to avoid the improper use of temporary and other uncompensated appointments. At the same time, we are working to reduce the hiring or new library employees, for what used to be librarian work, outside of the librarian series because it has been so difficult to recruit within the series given the current low pay of the unit.
The UC-AFT is also seeking significant increases and greater equity in the provision of professional development funds which allow librarians to attend professional conferences, upgrade their education and training, and conduct other professional activities which enhance their value to the faculty, students, and others who use library services. We are also looking for improvements the opportunities for leaves and other mechanisms that will enhance professional development opportunities for librarians.
Ostensibly, UC librarians have a peer review system for advancement in library careers. While certain aspects of the process seem to function well, all too often, individual managers or members of the administration inside and outside of the libraries have inappropriate control of the process of merit reviews and other promotional and career-related decisions. Consequently, in the current bargaining, the UC-AFT is seeking to clarify some of the more ambiguous sections of the MOU as it relates to various kinds of reviews affecting Unit 17.
Some of the other areas where we are seeking improved MOU language include, changes related to involuntary transfers, the right to use telecommuting where appropriate, University pay for library stewards and the recognition of union work as professional work, and better access to University housing, child care, educational, and other resources for librarians and their families.
The UC-AFT is opening several articles in order to increase the enforceability of their provisions. In too many cases, articles have language that provides reasonable guidelines for library practices; however, because the provisions lack the support of full grievance and arbitration arrangements, they are essentially unenforceable. Unfortunately, time has demonstrated that MOU promises that are not backed up by enforcement mechanisms often go unrealized in practice.
In our initial proposal, the UC-AFT is seeking a three year MOU with each side able to open one article each year the agreement is in existence. Of course, our final approach to the duration of the agreement will be directly impacted by the kinds of salary, workload, and other improvements we are able to achieve at the bargaining table.
Structure of the Bargaining Committee and Negotiating Team
In the current round of bargaining, the librarians will be represented by a broadly representative Bargaining Committee consisting of:
Two representatives from each campus
Miki Goral, Chief Negotiator Emerita
Mike Rotkin, Chief Negotiator
Karen Sawislak, Executive Director of the UC-AFT
This group will be fully informed before and after each bargaining session and will have the power to determine the parameters within which the UC-AFT’s Negotiating Team will operate. Decisions will be made by consensus whenever possible, and by majority vote when time constraints make that impossible. In addition to setting the parameters for negotiations, the Bargaining Committee has a primary responsibility to keep the librarians on their respective campuses well informed about the bargaining process and to engage the local members in support actions when they are necessary. Please respond positively when your Bargaining Committee representatives call on you for your active support of the bargaining process. This is the group that any member of the librarian unit can contact, along with your local Field Representatives, for further information about the progress of bargaining.
Here is the roster for the current Bargaining Committee:
Harrison Decker, UCB
Axel Borg, UCD
David Michalski, UCD
Ken Firestein, UCD
Mitchell Brown, UCI
Julia Gelfand, UCI
Brian Williams, UCI
Michelle Jacobs, UCLA
Louise Ratliff, UCLA
Lise Snyder, UCLA
Michael Yonezawa, UCR
Steve Mitchell, UCR
Gary Colmenar, UCSB
Chimene Tucker, UCSB
Sally Weimer, UCSB
Kenneth Lyons, UCSC
Annette Marines, UCSC,
Mike Rotkin, UC-AFT,
Miki Goral, UC-AFT,
Karen Sawislak, UC-AFT,
We are currently working on a process to finalize the Bargaining Committee with two representatives from each campus. As you can see, we still need representatives from a couple of campuses and some campuses have more than two representatives.
From the above group, an initial Negotiating Team has been selected and is composed of the following members:
Mitchell Brown
Harrison Dekker
Ken Firestein
Miki Goral
Michelle Jacobs
Ken Lyons
Steve Mitchell
Mike Rotkin – Chief Negotiator
Karen Sawislak
Chimene Tucker
What’s Next?
We will issue a brief bargaining update after December 3, when we know what issues the UC administration raises in their opening proposals. Our first face-to-face bargaining will take place on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 in Oakland. We will issue a bargaining update after that session and after every session in the future. Future bargaining may take place at either locations in northern or southern California. At times, we may schedule bargaining on one or more of the campuses and ask members of various locals to demonstrate their concerns before the beginning of bargaining that day. We will be producing pubic literature in support of the librarians at UC. As necessary, we will engage the support of our CFT and AFT affiliates and public officials as well as the general public.
We know that we will not get everything we have outlined in our opening bargaining proposals; however, if the locals continue their organizing efforts and we gather the support we expect from our Unit 17 members, from other members of our union, from other unions, from other UC faculty, staff, and students, and from the general public, we know we can make substantial gains during the current round of bargaining.
We are not asking for anything that is unreasonable. We are not asking for anything that the University cannot afford. We asking only for things that will help improve the quality of service that the University libraries provide to the University community. If we stick together, and if we work together, we shall win a contract of which we can all be proud – a contract that the librarians at UC deserve.
In solidarity,
Mike Rotkin
Chief Negotiator
Unit 17
December 3, 2007
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that governs the working conditions and compensation of Unit 17 librarians at the University of California is about to be re-negotiated. On December 3, 2007, opening proposals were exchanged between the UC Administration and the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) on behalf of the librarians. The UC-AFT is proposing to open and seek improvements in about half of the articles in the current MOU; however, of primary concern are librarian salaries, workload, and support for professional activities .
After a number of years in which the librarian unit has had only minimal success at the bargaining table, there is a new militancy among librarians, who are better organized and have a clearer set of bargaining goals than in many years. We have recently held labor-management meetings on the local campuses that have uncovered a common set of concerns among librarians throughout the UC system. Although conditions do vary widely among campuses, there are clear and common concerns about issues of compensation, workload, and professional development opportunities. Librarians across the system have been meeting at the local level to plan our bargaining strategy and clarify our opening proposals to the University.
We have held multi-campus meetings in Berkeley and at UCLA and had conference calls among librarians to make sure that our approach to bargaining this time is unified and supported by the vast majority of librarians in the UC system. In each of these meetings, the local campuses were well represented by their respective librarians. The UC-AFT as an organization, and its leadership and staff, have committed to put its resources behind the effort to make major advances at the bargaining table during the current negotiations.
Below, we discuss in some more detail the following topics: 1) the issues we are raising in this round of bargaining; 2) the structure of our negotiating team and the larger bargaining committee which will guide its work; and 3) where we are going from here.
UC-AFT Opening Proposals
The UC-AFT is seeking significant increases in salaries because UC librarians have fallen far behind their colleagues in the California State University system and even behind many community college librarians in pay. Consequently, the opening salary proposal sets forth a new salary scale based on the minimum of the range in comparable titles for CSU librarians. Under this proposal, the minimum annual salary for Assistant, Associate, and full Librarians would be as follows: $55,944; $61,678; and $82,650.
The issues of salary and workload are intertwined. On many UC campuses, low librarian salaries have resulted in recruitment and retention problems. In addition, budget cuts have led to reductions in the numbers of library assistants and library workers represented by other unions or lower-level management positions. The result is increasing workloads for the remaining Unit 17 librarians who often take on the work previously done by other library workers. The increased workload, in turn, exacerbates the retention problem, as additional librarians seek better paid and less stressful employment elsewhere, leaving even more vacancies to be filled by the overworked librarians who remain.
The current librarian MOU has no workload article, perhaps because in the past librarians believed that their professional status and membership in LAUC would provide them with reasonable solutions to workload problems outside of the MOU and the union bargaining process. However, time has demonstrated that, like other professional units at UC, only a strong, enforceable collective labor agreement can provide librarians with a mechanism to respond to workload abuses when short-staffing and other problems result in librarians taking on additional, uncompensated duties for their missing colleagues. We have drafted an entirely new Workload article to address some of these serious problems.
One of the more common outcomes of staff shortages is that librarians are doing increasing amounts of routine work in the library and have less and less time for activities related to their professional development. In addition to making the work less challenging and satisfying in professional terms, this is then held against librarians when they go up for periodic reviews and consideration for merit increases.
As a result, the UC-AFT is also opening and seeking improvement in several articles related to professional development, the use of temporary workers, and temporary assignments, many of which last for years and involve significant uncompensated or under-compensated work. We are working to create incentives for the University administration to avoid the improper use of temporary and other uncompensated appointments. At the same time, we are working to reduce the hiring or new library employees, for what used to be librarian work, outside of the librarian series because it has been so difficult to recruit within the series given the current low pay of the unit.
The UC-AFT is also seeking significant increases and greater equity in the provision of professional development funds which allow librarians to attend professional conferences, upgrade their education and training, and conduct other professional activities which enhance their value to the faculty, students, and others who use library services. We are also looking for improvements the opportunities for leaves and other mechanisms that will enhance professional development opportunities for librarians.
Ostensibly, UC librarians have a peer review system for advancement in library careers. While certain aspects of the process seem to function well, all too often, individual managers or members of the administration inside and outside of the libraries have inappropriate control of the process of merit reviews and other promotional and career-related decisions. Consequently, in the current bargaining, the UC-AFT is seeking to clarify some of the more ambiguous sections of the MOU as it relates to various kinds of reviews affecting Unit 17.
Some of the other areas where we are seeking improved MOU language include, changes related to involuntary transfers, the right to use telecommuting where appropriate, University pay for library stewards and the recognition of union work as professional work, and better access to University housing, child care, educational, and other resources for librarians and their families.
The UC-AFT is opening several articles in order to increase the enforceability of their provisions. In too many cases, articles have language that provides reasonable guidelines for library practices; however, because the provisions lack the support of full grievance and arbitration arrangements, they are essentially unenforceable. Unfortunately, time has demonstrated that MOU promises that are not backed up by enforcement mechanisms often go unrealized in practice.
In our initial proposal, the UC-AFT is seeking a three year MOU with each side able to open one article each year the agreement is in existence. Of course, our final approach to the duration of the agreement will be directly impacted by the kinds of salary, workload, and other improvements we are able to achieve at the bargaining table.
Structure of the Bargaining Committee and Negotiating Team
In the current round of bargaining, the librarians will be represented by a broadly representative Bargaining Committee consisting of:
Two representatives from each campus
Miki Goral, Chief Negotiator Emerita
Mike Rotkin, Chief Negotiator
Karen Sawislak, Executive Director of the UC-AFT
This group will be fully informed before and after each bargaining session and will have the power to determine the parameters within which the UC-AFT’s Negotiating Team will operate. Decisions will be made by consensus whenever possible, and by majority vote when time constraints make that impossible. In addition to setting the parameters for negotiations, the Bargaining Committee has a primary responsibility to keep the librarians on their respective campuses well informed about the bargaining process and to engage the local members in support actions when they are necessary. Please respond positively when your Bargaining Committee representatives call on you for your active support of the bargaining process. This is the group that any member of the librarian unit can contact, along with your local Field Representatives, for further information about the progress of bargaining.
Here is the roster for the current Bargaining Committee:
Harrison Decker, UCB
Axel Borg, UCD
David Michalski, UCD
Ken Firestein, UCD
Mitchell Brown, UCI
Julia Gelfand, UCI
Brian Williams, UCI
Michelle Jacobs, UCLA
Louise Ratliff, UCLA
Lise Snyder, UCLA
Michael Yonezawa, UCR
Steve Mitchell, UCR
Gary Colmenar, UCSB
Chimene Tucker, UCSB
Sally Weimer, UCSB
Kenneth Lyons, UCSC
Annette Marines, UCSC,
Mike Rotkin, UC-AFT,
Miki Goral, UC-AFT,
Karen Sawislak, UC-AFT,
We are currently working on a process to finalize the Bargaining Committee with two representatives from each campus. As you can see, we still need representatives from a couple of campuses and some campuses have more than two representatives.
From the above group, an initial Negotiating Team has been selected and is composed of the following members:
Mitchell Brown
Harrison Dekker
Ken Firestein
Miki Goral
Michelle Jacobs
Ken Lyons
Steve Mitchell
Mike Rotkin – Chief Negotiator
Karen Sawislak
Chimene Tucker
What’s Next?
We will issue a brief bargaining update after December 3, when we know what issues the UC administration raises in their opening proposals. Our first face-to-face bargaining will take place on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 in Oakland. We will issue a bargaining update after that session and after every session in the future. Future bargaining may take place at either locations in northern or southern California. At times, we may schedule bargaining on one or more of the campuses and ask members of various locals to demonstrate their concerns before the beginning of bargaining that day. We will be producing pubic literature in support of the librarians at UC. As necessary, we will engage the support of our CFT and AFT affiliates and public officials as well as the general public.
We know that we will not get everything we have outlined in our opening bargaining proposals; however, if the locals continue their organizing efforts and we gather the support we expect from our Unit 17 members, from other members of our union, from other unions, from other UC faculty, staff, and students, and from the general public, we know we can make substantial gains during the current round of bargaining.
We are not asking for anything that is unreasonable. We are not asking for anything that the University cannot afford. We asking only for things that will help improve the quality of service that the University libraries provide to the University community. If we stick together, and if we work together, we shall win a contract of which we can all be proud – a contract that the librarians at UC deserve.
In solidarity,
Mike Rotkin
Chief Negotiator
Unit 17
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