Thousands of UC lecturers to strike
Faculty claims university’s labor practices unfair
More than 6,000 University of California lecturers plan to walk off the job at nine UC campuses Wednesday and Thursday, a move that will leave thousands of students across the state with empty classrooms during much of the strike.
Lecturers are nontenured faculty who teach nearly half of all undergraduate and many graduate-level classes. Represented by the American Federation of Teachers, the lecturers are accusing UC leadership of bad-faith bargaining on a range of issues, including paid family leave, compensation for online instruction, and layoffs at UC Davis.
UC issued a statement denying the claims, calling the planned strike “grossly unfair to our students.”
The sides have been at the negotiating table for 2½ years and reached an official impasse in June. The contract expired in January 2020.
The labor union has filed seven “unfair labor practice” charges with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board against UC, claiming that President Michael Drake’s administration is refusing to bargain on key matters, instead issuing “unlawful take-it-or-leave-it ultimatums.”
“It’s these kinds of unfair labor practices that demonstrate a lack of respect for teaching faculty and for the students who depend on us,” Mia McIver, president of University Council-AFT said in a statement. “UC lecturers have had enough, and that’s why we have called this strike.”
Only UCSF is not expected to see a strike.
In its statement, UC said the union’s claims are unsupported by the facts.
“We continue to meet with union leaders in good faith,” including on Monday and a
planned meeting on Tuesday, the university said, noting that UC has offered union leaders “substantial pay increases, an enhanced appointment system” and more stability in job expectations, among other improvements, UC said.
“UC is committed to providing our lecturers with a good, fair contract, but we need the union’s partnership,” UC said.
UC did make a proposal — but sent it directly to union members rather than to the bargaining team as required under mediation, said Crystal Chang, a UC Berkeley lecturer and co-chair of the union’s Bay Area chapter.
James Weichert, a UC Berkeley junior and student government vice president, has been rallying students in support of the strike and plans to attend both rallies this week.
Far more important to
students than making sure they get every moment of class time this week is that lecturers have stable employment at UC, he said.
“I’ve taken classes with lecturers in previous years who aren’t even still at Berkeley a few years later,” Weichert said, noting that students cultivate important relationships with lecturers only to see them vanish. “Especially when it comes to mentorship
and letters of recommendation, the lack of job stability really hurts undergrads.”
Many students consider lecturers some of their best instructors, Weichert said.
Lecturer Michael Ball, a software engineer who teaches in the UC Berkeley computer science department, wrote a note to faculty colleagues Monday supporting the walkout — despite its inconvenience to students. “The real disruption is that more than a quarter of lecturers leave within a year. This is a longterm harm to students,” he wrote, adding that the strike, in many cases, will result in “withholding one or two hours of direct instructional time with students, somewhere around 3% of our total class time, and perhaps some delayed emailed or office hours.”
Low pay and the ease with which the university can let lecturers go all contribute to the high turnover rate. The starting salary for full-time lecturers is $57,000, yet most are not full time and earn far less.
“For a strike to matter, it has to be a little bit disruptive,” Ball said. “The point is, well, to make a point — that we matter.”