Bargaining Update #9: More bad-faith bargaining from UC with 2 weeks until our contracts expire
We are now in our 5th month of negotiations and our contracts expire in less than 2 weeks. Yet the University has not ended its unfair practices, made significant movement on our priorities, nor even provided a complete contract proposal.
UC has not provided any pay proposal at all for Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) and has not responded to proposals that UPTE made more than 2 months ago, such as Shift Differentials and Subcontracting.
At bargaining yesterday at UC Santa Cruz, UPTE members once again packed the room to share stories of how poor compensation, misclassification, lack of career progression and more are impacting our students and our research. We were also joined by State Assemblywoman Gail Pellerin who called on the University to address the affordability crisis, and by State Senator John Laird who pledged his support if a strike becomes necessary.
Our rally was covered by KSBW Action News 8, local NPR affiliate KAZU 90.3, and Lookout Santa Cruz.
So what did UC do in bargaining?
UC's only "movement" was to remove the contingency on state funding for a 3% raise in 2027 and to add a step increase for RX/TX in 2025. When UC asked if UPTE would bargain for LBNL separately, we made it clear that we will not leave LBNL members behind, nor will we leave Research and Technical workers without annual step increases. This is too little, too late.
UC also rejected our proposal to decrease parking rates by pay band, instead proposing to increase the existing annual cap on parking rates at UC Davis and Merced.
Click here to see an updated side-by-side comparison of our proposals and here for an explanation of how UC's proposal to remove caps on healthcare premium increases could be used to wipe out any raises we receive in this contract.
UC has been bargaining in bad faith for months; refusing to supply data on vacancies and reclassification and failing to provide their negotiators with significant authority. On top of this, they are implementing significant healthcare increases without bargaining. Click here to pledge to strike!
Click here to sign a strike pledge and let UC know that you won't let them keep violating their duty to bargain in good faith thus deepening the crisis of recruitment and retention across UC.