Finally, Some Movement

Hello Everyone,

I posted nothing for months, largely because there was little to report. However, in the last week, UC-AFT met twice with the University, and we are scheduled to meet again in one week.

More important, we have begun to use real numbers in negotiations, which means we're getting into the real negotiations in salary. Our emphasis in this round of contracts is adjusting the salaries of those who have a) been teaching longest in the UC system and b) who are getting the lower salaries. However, there will be range adjustments for everyone, and the base salary will increase. The merit steps will be improved, both in terms of logic and in terms of size. We don't yet know the actual percentage increase of the moves between salary lines.

Our discussions concerning workload are also proceeding, but there we have made less concrete gains. We are moving toward language that should make it easier for all lecturers to get credit for the work they actually do, and we are fighting hard to reduce the numbers of the courses taught by those lecturers in the quarter system.

The UC-AFT bargaining team is scheduling meetings on all the campuses. At these meetings, one of the team members will be present to answer questions about bargaining. We know it is summer time, but when you get the announcement of a meeting, please make an effort to attend. You can always feel free to contact me as well.

Ben Harder