June 23, 2009

Dear UPTE Local 1 Members,

Last week, memos by Chancellor Birgeneau and President Yudof caused many to believe we are facing certain pay reductions. This is far from true and we wanted to let you know what this means for researchers and techs bargaining for our contract, and also about a much broader campaign by Yudof against UC workers and students. Some of our plans to fight back follow.

UC has publicly announced that at the next Regents meeting, on July 15th, the Regents plan to give President Yudof unprecedented "emergency powers" to enact substantial wage cuts, furloughs, or a combination of these. While UC says these cuts will affect ''all workers,'' it is illegal for UC to impose these measures on UPTE-represented employees—we are protected against furloughs and wage cuts by our union contracts. Implementation of any wage change is subject to collective bargaining. Now that techs and researchers are negotiating for new contracts, we will not go backwards on pay.

UC is still an extremely wealthy institution, and the vast majority of UC workers are not funded by the state. This is even more true for UPTE workers. We are committed to protecting the pay of unrepresented employees—those in the administrative professional titles, as well.

Yudof’s memo both exaggerates the severity of the crisis and proposes outrageous alternatives to cover a relatively small shortfall in UC's $19 billion annual budget.  Moreover, the UC retains billions in reserves.

This type of fiscal deception has led state legislators to call for independent audits and increased oversight of UC’s finances. UPTE continues to work with these legislators to bring transparency to UC’s finances and accountability to the regents.

Unfortunately, UC management has always been quick to violate labor law, impose financial burdens on staff and students, and spend lavishly as it sees fit—such as on the ten executives who were hired by the regents or given raises last month or the $80 million recently spent in purchasing overpriced property in Berkeley.

We need your support to stop Yudof's power grab and prevent him from attempting to override our contracts! A coalition of unions, students, staff and faculty is planning for a large turnout at the Regents meeting on July 15th.

We are asking all members to join us at this meeting on July 15th. To reserve your seat on the bus contact (510) 848-UPTE or send an email to uptemike@pacbell.net.

Last Thursday more than thirty UPTE members met to discuss upcoming actions. These members formed committees:  media, signmaking, student outreach, faculty outreach, etc. Let us know if you would like to join one of these committees or contribute in other ways to this campaign.

Reserve your seat on the bus today.

In solidarity,

Tanya Smith, editor, President
Dave Graham-Squire, staff research associate, Vice President
Mike Friedrich, Leadership Development Coordinator

The flyer can be found below in the attachment or at: http://upte.org/UPTEonbudgetflyer.pdf

From SFGate.com:

In a rare move, faculty representatives from the University of California openly criticized UC regents in a scathing letter Wednesday accusing the governing board of inaction during the worst budget crisis ever faced by the 10-campus system.

The UC Faculty Association all but declared the 26-member board AWOL, noting a two-month gap between meetings as the university faces cuts of more than $800 million this year and next as part of the state's effort to close a $24.3 billion budget gap.

Charles Schwartz, Professor Emeritus of Physics UC Berkeley, recently wrote this letter to Mark Yudoff about debunking UC's version of the facts surround the current UC budget crisis. To see this letter and more of Professor Schwartz papers on UC's financing, go to his blog, UniversityProbe.org – a critical forum on Research Universities, their finances, their governance, …, their future <http://universityprobe.org/>.

Mark Yudof, President
University of California
President@ucop.edu

Dear Mark;

Yesterday I found a new document, titled “The UC Budget: Myths & Facts”, posted at the top of the NEWS column on the web site of the University of California Office of the President, WWW.UCOP.EDU Are you the person responsible for that load of lies and half-truths?

A good FAQ about the budget crisis from UC-AFT:

Q.: If the UC is broke, why would the union resist a 5% salary reduction?
A: We do not think the university is broke, and we want them to prove to us that they need to make these cuts.

Q: Why do you think they are not broke?
A: The university brings in billions of dollars every year in profits from medical services, extension programs, parking, housing, research, patents, and fund raising. They are just trying to maintain a high level of disposable income, while they claim they are poor. See "Budget Lies (A Letter to the President of UC)."

For Thursday 18 June 2009

In Attendance:

EBoard Members:   Delores Dillard (President), Andrew Shapiro (Vice President), Dawn Geddes (Treasurer), Kate Schultz (Secretary), Cheryl Yancey (Trustee) and 37  members

Staff:   Gloria Harlee and Isaac Mora

Once economic crisis gets snarled up and aggravated it often can no longer be resolved by economic means. Then a political crisis emerges as economic classes seek to determine a political resolution to the crisis. By definition, politics is about the struggle for power – to control what happens – and no force is larger in that struggle than classes.

The French Revolution was the classic example. It was precipitated by a long drawn-out budget and tax crisis. Every class, including the king, was in favor of taxation, but nobody could figure how to raise taxes without trampling on the hallowed privileges of each estate. The months of stasis lead to increasing suffering, until women demonstrating at Versailles just decided to kidnap the king. Then things jumped off. Suddenly the budget crisis was subsumed by politics as the newly wealthy bourgeoisie took over and changed everything.

The economics of California’s budget crisis are fundamentally different, but the nexus of events is pushing political resolution onto the stage. At one level, the state’s crisis is a classic “Shock” straight out of the pages of Naomi Klein’s important book The Shock Doctrine. As we will see below, the so-called $24.3 budget crisis is completely manufactured, a direct and deliberate result of policies embraced by both Democrats and Republicans.

California’s crisis is deliberately engineered by corporations. We all remember the last manufactured crisis - the state’s 1999 “Electrical Crisis”  - that was engineered by ENRON and various hedge funds in order to make a hostile takeover of the state’s electrical grid. That little crisis cost the state some $40 billion, money that is still being paid off.

It has been brought to my attention that as the bargainer for Local 3, I need to begin to send bargaining reports to the entire jurisdiction.  Although, I have been giving reports to the Local Eboard and at the General Membership Meetings, I have been amiss in my duties to you by not sending out a jurisdictional email.  For that, I apologize.

Dear CUE Brothers and Sisters,

UPTE, the union that represents technical and professional employees, will be on strike on Wednesday, May 6 to protest unfair labor practices by UC, such as bargaining in bad faith, retaliating against bargaining team members, refusing to provide information vital to bargaining such as wage costing and pension plan data.  UPTE has been working without a contract since July 1, 2008.

CUE is currently bargaining for your new contract, and UC uses the same tactics with us as it does with UPTE, stall, Stall, STALL.   It’s time to take action to show UC that failure to bargain in good faith will no longer be tolerated.

What can you do?

The most important thing you can do to support UPTE is to come join a picket line!  Since our contract has expired we are in the period of Status Quo.  Our No-Strike article is no longer in effect and employees  in the Clerical & Allied Services unit have the right to honor the picket lines and march with our brothers and sisters in UPTE.  CUE Local 3 has authorized $50 in sympathy strike pay for any member who spends four hours on the picket line next week.  Be sure to wear your CUE t-shirt, and sign in with CUE.  (If you need T-Shirt we will have some available at the Sproul Hall picket line.

If you are unable to join us for the day, even joining before work, after work or on your lunch hour and breaks will help.  Strength in numbers is the only way that UC will deal fairly with us!!

Gains by other unions, such as AFSCME and UPTE, strengthen us all.  Please join CUE members on the UPTE picket line on May 6.

Questions?  Email berkeleycue@cueunion.org or call 841-0700.

Last week (April 19-21, 2009) during bargaining CUE and UC exchanged wage proposals. CUE is working to get the most reasonable increase considering the economic times and the documented
fact that members of CUE are receiving (and have been receiving for over 10 years) wages that are significantly below the market.

The CUE proposal structures across the board increases for all CX employees of:

• 3.5% effective October 1, 2008;
• 4% effective July 1, 2009;
• 4% effective July 1, 2010;
• 4% effective July 1, 2011
• In each year the proposal also structures:

Step and percentage equity increases (half-step and 2% and full step and .5%) between the urban and lower paid rural designated campuses; and longevity step placement consistent with what has been already implemented by UC for other represented employees and CUE represented employees at the San Francisco medical center. See the longevity tables at this link:
http://sfcue.org/guidelines.php

For more info on the strike please to the UPTE website

UPTE is on strike for unfair labor practices – e.g. UC did not present any proposals for over 10 months and cancelled bargaining sessions.

CUE also has been in bargaining for a very long time with little resolution offered by UC.  Because we don’t have a contract, we can legally strike in solidarity with UPTE – and in effect stand up for ourselves!

UPTE is in allegiance with CUE and shares many of our demands which include:

• Call on the UC negotiators to bargain fair and reasonable wage increases. This would be the only fair and consistent action to take following raises for management, faculty and 10,000 other UC workers this year.
   
• A campus wide moratorium on layoffs that would avoid staff and their families having to face long term unemployment in a devastated economy. The UC community should pull together in these tough times.
   
• A significant cut in executive pay to ensure that the financial sacrifices are being made by those in the best position to make them. Stanford University has taken the lead on this.  management should show the same moral leadership in this situation.
   
• Develop a campus wide program that is based on shared sacrifice to protect UC staff from unemployment.  A stronger START Program that is universally applied and credited to departments.

 
CUE Local 3, 2510 Channing Way, Suite 1, Berkeley, CA 94704
510-841-0700
http://www.berkeleycue.org/