UC, union talks go into the night

were unfounded.

“While we continue to bargain in good faith, withholding instruction is grossly unfair to our students and a strike does not move us closer to a contract,” UC said. “The union’s unfair-labor-practice claims against UC are neither supported by the facts nor any finding by the California Public Employment Relations Board.”

University Council-AFT, the union representing the lecturers, disagreed.

“The problem right now is that we can’t get the University of California to bargain in good faith with us. Every negotiation is a game — it’s like we’re trying to play billiards and the table is tilted to one side,” said John Branstetter, the president of UC-AFT Los Angeles Local 1990 and a fifth-year UCLA lecturer.

In June, 96% of lecturers voted to authorize a strike after the union filed two unfair-labor-practice charges.

UC proposed a policy that would grant eight weeks of leave at 70% of pay for eligible employees to care for a seriously ill family member or bond with a new child. But most lecturers, the majority of whom teach part time, would not meet the policy’s eligibility requirements to be on the job at least one year and 1,250 hours. The union wants the policy to cover more lecturers.

Progress has been made on some fronts, union officials said.

Mia McIver, UC-AFT president, said while the strike was called on the family leave and mediation issues, the two sides are close to an agreement on another major area of concern, job stability for lecturers. Currently, lecturers must work six years before moving into a more senior status with better pay, benefits and security, but the union argues that UC holds them back from achieving that milestone by failing to adequately evaluate them. UC is proposing contracts of one year, two years and three years — with performance reviews at each stage.

The strike is being supported by hundreds of faculty members and students across the UC system.

UCLA student leader Breeze Velazquez said she intends to join the picket line Wednesday to stand in solidarity with lecturers.

She said many of them provide more “care and love” than some professors, who focus more on their research than teaching. Velazquez, president of the UCLA Undergraduate Student Assn. Council, recalled one lecturer during her sophomore year who took extra time to help guide her when she was struggling to decide on an academic path and write a final term paper.

“I was really freaking out,” Velazquez said, “but she sat with me for an hour, and I got an A in the class.”

She added that, as a lowincome student, she understood the hardships faced by lecturers who earn a median income of $19,000 annually and work multiple jobs, while trying to teach, research and, for some, raise families.

Branstetter said he is currently working three jobs and is anxious about his job security. But he said he is unwilling to settle for a contract that doesn’t meet the needs of all members.

“We’ve been out of a contract since January 2020,” he said. “What that means is I haven’t gotten a raise in two years now. … I want to get to a contract where I’m not worried if I’ll have a job next year.”

Constance Penley, a UC Santa Barbara professor who serves as president of the Council of UC Faculty Assns., said more than 800 tenure-track faculty members have pledged solidarity with the lecturers, and most of them plan to honor the strike by canceling classes. That show of support by tenured faculty for their lecturer colleagues is unprecedented, she said.