Winning the battles—and the war

UC has yet to propose bargaining dates for our next session, after saying they were unavailable for the dates that UPTE proposed in early June.

UC may not be showing urgency to get bargaining done, but we feel the urgency every day that the recruitment and retention crisis worsens—and need to use that to keep our co-workers engaged.

As we prepare to keep building pressure through the next phase of our contract campaign, we continue to win fights at the departmental level thanks to the power we have continued to build over the past three years.

Earlier this month, 22 UC Davis Social Workers at Jail Psychological Services (JPS), serving two jails in Sacramento, won a multi-year fight for fair re-classification with the support of UC Davis Co-Chair and Unit Representative Sonya Mogilner.

Lack of career progression contributes to an 80% annual turnover rate at JPS. This is a major victory over UC's pattern of under-classifying healthcare workers who treat vulnerable patient populations.

"When we, the forensic clinical social workers at the Sacramento jails, asked why we weren't eligible for the Medical Social Worker 2 classification they tried to tell us that there was 'no business need' for it.

If we wanted to get the wages our experience entitled us to then we would have to leave the work we loved. We didn't accept that answer and kept pushing. Finally we are getting the respect and compensation we deserve. 

We all need to remember that management isn't going to give us what we deserve—they're only going to give us what we fight for."

- Holly Deen,
Workplace Representative

Share this example with co-workers who need a boost of confidence that we can win. We can never know when exactly UC will crack and agree to a fair contract—all we know is that the more pressure we build, the sooner we will win.

Dan Russell
UPTE President
UPTE Chief Negotiator
Business Technical Support Analyst, UC Berkeley