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Statewide Conference to Save Public Education—for K-12 through Higher Education
9am Registration (the conference is free)
Statewide Conference to Save Public Education—for K-12 through Higher Education. More information available at:
http://www.savecapubliceducation.org/
Saturday, October 24
5:15pm (after the statewide mobilizing conference), Bancroft and Telegraph, UCB
UC chief's glib NYT interview raises ire
From SFBG.com:
While reading the Sunday New York Times, I was surprised to see the magazine’s Q&A with UC President Mark Yudof – and dismayed by the timing and glib tone that he took.
Just days after UC faculty, employees, and students took to the streets in protest of Yudof’s anti-democratic approach to making deep cuts and huge tuition hikes, here he is playing the cutesy wannabe celebrity who jokes about his lack of commitment to and qualifications for this important job.
CUE Supports UPTE Strike
CUE is supporting the UPTE strike and walkout for Sept. 24
For information on picket lines see: http://upte.org/strikelocations.html
What's the Matter with UCOP?
Excellent post from Remaking the University
On the use of furlough days, all UCOP had to do was keep quiet. Why couldn't it?
Faculty around the system spent weeks discussing whether 6 or 10 or some other number of their up to 26 days of furlough might be applied to instruction, and Academic Council's August 5th statement on furlough implementation recommended that 6 furlough days be assigned to days of instruction and that up to 10 be allowed. Council's recommendation rests on longstanding faculty obligations to partition their workload among teaching, research and service according to their own professional judgment in formal consultation with their department, the Senate, and immediate administrators (faculty are responsible for "approval of course content and manner of instruction" APM-015). Council's recommendation was also in compliance with APM-005 (via President Robert Sproul in 1935), which states that the planning and committee supervision and reporting of an individual's workload does not violate academic freedom if the plan is "reasonable" and "the plan has come into being through the democratic means of discussion and mutual give and take, within the Faculty, rather than arbitrarily imposed from without."
UC Faculty Walk Out - Sept. 24
A CORRECTION: FROM SHARED GOVERNANCE TO COLLECTIVE ACTION
An Open Letter to UC Faculty
August 31, 2009
Dear Colleagues,
We are grateful for Provost Pitts’ letter of 21 August—sent at the opening of a late summer weekend, with unimpeachably cowardly timing—for clarifying certain matters. Foremost among them is the farce of shared governance, in distinction to emergency powers. It is now finally inarguable that the polling of the faculty on significant matters is a fig leaf for the will of the Chancellors and the Office of the President. We stand corrected: shared governance is merely the polite name for emergency powers.
The implementation of the Regents’ furlough plan—approved on the same day as the President’s emergency powers—was presented to faculty as a process to be worked out at the discretion of each campus. On July 29, the Academic Council, representing the Academic Senates of all ten campuses, voted unanimously for systemwide implementation of at least six instruction-day furloughs over the academic year, with permission for campuses to have up to ten such days.
This recommendation—based on the expressly stated will of the faculty—was summarily rejected by the Chancellors and the Office of the President.
The reason for this unilateral decision is clear: the administration seeks to evade public accountability for the manner in which it has managed the budget crisis. It was the “optics” of the Senate Council’s recommendation that were judged untenable. The Office of the President has failed to arrive at a plan that would protect the interests of both students and workers. It wishes to disguise the harm this failure has done to the University’s mission. Or better: it seeks to shift the blame for this failure to the faculty, should we be so bold as to hold the President accountable to the consequences of his own plan. Toward this evasion, UCOP has flagrantly erased the difference between a furlough and a paycut, presenting the latter in the guise of the former.
Local 3 Bargaining Report - 8/31/2009
Local 3 Bargaining Report
The CUE Bargaining Team met with UC on August 26 - 28 at the Office of the President at 300 Lakeside Drive in Oakland.
I would like to thank the 4 members of the Berkeley campus that came over; your support is greatly appreciated: Ute Rupp, Michelle Good, Elena Zaslavsky and Linda Morgan; and Loys Everett from UCOP.
During the session the team worked on and gave proposals to UC for the Health and Safety (Art. 8) and Layoff (Art. 13) articles. The CUE team also engaged in more questions with the UC team regarding the Salary Reduction and Furlough Plan.
We are making every attempt to try and gain certain guarantees in regards to the program and its effects, but have been unable thus far to get a guarantee of no layoffs during the life of the program. It is clear to us that even with a guarantee of no layoffs in relation to the salary reduction/furlough program; UC can and will find other reasons to lay off its employees.
Vote No Confidence in UC President Mark Yudof
Vote NO! to Mark Yudof and his polices. Rather than using the numerous reserves and resources of UC, Yudof proposes tuition hikes and devastating cuts to the teaching, research and vital services on campuses. UC deserves leadership working to maintain it's mission, not destroy it. Make your voice heard and vote “No-Confidence” in Yudof!
VOTING TIMES AND LOCATIONS:
| Day | Time | Location |
| Thursday Aug 27 | 11:30am-6pm | Bancroft + Telegraph |
| Thursday Aug 27 | 12-1 pm | University Village |
| Thursday Aug 27 | 12-1pm and 2:30-3:30pm | LBNL cafeteria |
| Thursday Aug 27 | 8:30pm-9:30pm | Dwinelle Hall |
| Friday Aug 28 - Wednesday Sept 2 | 12 -1pm | Bancroft +Telegraph |
| Thurs. Aug 27, Fri. 8/28, Mon 8/31, and Thurs. Sept 2. |
12-1pm | Moffitt Library |
| Thursday Aug 27 thru Wednesday Sept 2 | 12-1pm | Northgate (Hearst/Euclid) |
| Thursday Aug 27 thru Wednesday Sept 2 | 7:30-9:00 am | Westgate (Center/Oxford) |
| Wednesday Sept 2 | 12-1pm | College/Bancroft |
| Tuesday Sept 1 thru Wed Sept2 | 12-1pm | Yali's/Stanley Hall |
| Tuesday Sept 1 thru Wed Sept2 | 12-1pm | Lawrence Hall of Science |
| Tuesday Sept 1 thru Wed Sept2 | 12-1pm | 1111 Franklin (UCOP) |
| Tuesday Sept 1 thru Wed Sept2 | 12-1pm | Richmond Field Station |
Local 3 Bargaining Report - 8/18/2009
The Bargaining Team met with UC on August 13 and 14th on the Riverside campus and more than twenty Riverside CUEsters came to support and observe over the two day period. They asked many insightful questions and gave their testimonies to UC, which definitely made an impact on the team.
This is a fiscal crisis for the state, not the university. In September CUE will be launching, "UC's Hidden Wealth," and presentations/Town Hall meetings will be scheduled across the state to enlighten and educate employees of the $5.3 billion in unrestricted funds that UC currently has. The crisis that we are in exists because UC continues to drain the state funds (19900 funds) by giving that money to its executives, (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/aar/comp.html )and senior managers, as observed by looking at the stipends, raises and bonuses given out the same day as the Regents voted on J2, seen at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul09/j2.pdf.
Where does the UC money go?
From Bob Samuels (UC-AFT)
Drawing from Jeffrey Bergamini’s excellent salary data (http://ucpay.globl.org/), we find the following:
In 2006, there were 2,464 employees earning over $200,000 with a total gross pay of $680 million and a total base pay of $331 million. By 2008, we find 3,643 employees earning over $200,000 with a total gross pay of 1 billion and base pay of $640 million. This means that in 2 years, the UC added 1,200 employees to the over $200,000 club, and these increases cost over $300 million. Also, if you look at the difference between gross pay and base pay, you will see that a lot of these people will only have part of their salaries reduced by the furlough plan. (more ...)
