CUCFA Expresses Solidarity with UC-AFT’s Fight for a Fair Contract
SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 –– Hundreds of UC Senate Faculty stand in solidarity with our lecturer colleagues, represented by their union, UC-AFT, in their fight for better working conditions, including recognition as professionals with the right to be rehired. We owe it to them, to ourselves, to our students, and to the broader community to fight for a university that treats all of its employees with dignity, and as more than gig workers.
Since the COVID 19 pandemic shut down in-person contract bargaining sessions between UC-AFT and UCOP labor relations, hundreds of UC Academic Senate (tenure-track) faculty have observed zoom-based contract bargaining sessions alongside our lecturer colleagues, undergraduate students, graduate students, alumni, and other allies. We learned of lecturers’ working conditions after listening to data- and experience-driven presentations about their conditions of employment, renewal, and general treatment at UC. We were angered by the constant disrespect, intentional misdirection, stalling, and bad-faith negotiation by UCOP lawyers, negotiators, and campus-based labor relations officers.
UCOP negotiators repeatedly deployed the tactic of pitting UC-AFT demands for job stability against Academic Senate faculty interests, claiming that the latter would be hurt by contract language that compromised flexibility. Current and former department chairs and senior ranking Academic Senate faculty members with many years of experience hiring lecturers rejected this claim. They affirm their workloads would be greatly alleviated if departments and programs could extend multi-year contracts to their lecturers. Senate faculty attendees also objected to UCOP’s efforts to further entrench a two-tiered system of faculty: tenure-track faculty who enjoy job security, liveable wages, research support, and benefits; and UC-AFT faculty colleagues whose median annual salary is less than $20,000 a year and who have no guaranteed benefits, no rehiring rights, and no protections of enforceable workload standards.
Hundreds of Academic Senate faculty across all ten campuses have signed a pledge of solidarity with our UC-AFT colleagues who, after two years of negotiations and for the first time in 20 years, voted with an overwhelming majority of 96% to authorize a strike. We echo UC-AFT’s demands that President Drake and the UC Board of Regents settle a new contract that genuinely addresses their priorities.
UCOP will be responsible for the disruption to campus operations that will ensue if they do not settle this contract. UC-AFT lecturers teach 30% of credit courses at UC. Hundreds of Academic Senate faculty have pledged to honor the picket line. We fight together because our colleagues deserve better, and because UC students deserve a high-quality education at an institution that does not treat its workers as disposable.
Lecturers are the backbone of quality instruction in UC. Yet, in some schools/departments, they are routinely reminded of how little UCOPs basic policies and contracts reflect their worth.
I have heard of cases where Lecturers are paid less than local high school teachers, and the proposed salary increases (https://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/labor/news/2021/facts-about-uc-lecturers-and-ucs-contract-negotiations-with-the-uc-aft1.html) would not change that fact. I have also heard of cases where lecturers are routinely subjected to “churn and burn” tactics where despite high quality teaching they are subjected to multiple one-year contracts, which again, would not be substantially curbed in the proposed UCOP contracts. This is not acceptable.
As a TT faculty member who used to work as a Lecturer at another university, I stand with UC Lecturers seeking fair pay and fair multi-year contacts.
Stability for lecturers means stability and pedagogical continuity for our students and our departments. We want lecturers who do a good job to get longer contracts that enable us to build the intellectual community and mission of our campuses. Do better, UCOP. We want to see you grant them the contract they want and deserve.