• UCR members and allies testified about the devastating impacts of sudden reductions in time and the shocking loss of longheld employment; 
• Our Table Team passed proposals to reframe academic responsibility, increase professional development funding, and create parity in pay, workload, and support for Summer Session teaching;
• UC passed minor technical updates to articles while once again failing to address our major concerns. 

The Fight Before the Fight: A Win for Member Power

The road to the best contract in higher ed is paved with a million small victories, many before we even reach the bargaining table. At UC Riverside, UC claimed the only bargaining rooms they could find were a 20-minute walk from main campus – in 100-degree heat! The Table Team pushed back … but UC wouldn’t budge.

But our UC-AFT members got the goods! UCR chapter leaders proved how inaccessible the rooms were, identified better venues, and their advocacy worked! We won central-campus rooms that were packed with Unit 18 faculty, allies and undergraduates throughout the day. It was an important reminder that members can move UC where the Table Team alone can’t. 

Unfortunately, there has been no progress in negotiating zoom bargaining. We hope this will be addressed soon, as zoom not only makes bargaining more accessible to all, but also because it was vital to our last contract negotiation, enabling members across the state to attend and participate in unprecedented numbers. We cannot win this fight without all of us.  

UCR testimony: Precarity, Layoffs, and the Student Experience at UC

As bargaining began, lecturers and students shared powerful testimony about the human cost of job insecurity. Their stories made it clear that behind every layoff and reduced appointment are real people, real families, and real consequences for our students. 

Matthew Rotondi’s life has been upended by the UC. A Continuing Lecturer in Sociology, he received a dramatic reduction in appointment before the start of this year, and notice that he would be fully laid off in the spring. In emotional testimony, he shared: “I stand here emotionally and financially broken, exhausted, sad, fearful, and angry. Yet, I will teach my one class this afternoon with poise and professionalism.”

Two longtime Creative Writing Lecturers gave impactful testimony about how job insecurity has threatened their families’ livelihoods. Joshua Hardina, whose appointment was drastically reduced after nearly two decades of service to the Creative Writing Department, shared: “This reduction may make it impossible for us to keep our home…I want to continue teaching UCR students and living in the community I have served for nearly twenty years.” Rachelle Cruz, who lost two classes just weeks before fall quarter, explained that her family of three depends on her work for income and insurance — and that she worries not just for her family but for her students: “I implore the University of California to remember whose labor it relies on. Whose long-lasting connection to students? Whose expertise, experience, and education? Whose wisdom, research and artistry?”

Students are paying the price, too. Undergraduate Dhallas Ruud, whose mother was the first UCR student to graduate with a Creative Writing bachelor’s degree, described watching the same department decline: “Mom attended the University during the tender birth of the Creative Writing Department, yet I am now witness to its starving form.”

As Table Team member Alison Lipman put it: “It’s bad for our students, bad for education, that we’re throwing people away.” This is why we’re fighting for real job stability for UC lecturers.

Dhallas offered a devastating assessment of the true cost of UC’s employment practices: “When I see the ways in which my educators have been undervalued and taken advantage of, it’s hard not to read between the lines: the UC System sees the quality of my education as expendable.

Our Proposal: Academic Responsibility (Article 3)

After powerful testimony from the UCR community, our Table Team presented a proposal which recognizes that we have academic responsibilities beyond our jobs as UC employees. UC-AFT members are part of a broader scholarly community, and so UC-AFT’s proposal cites the AAUP’s Statement on Professional Ethics as the source of our professional responsibility.

The proposal reframes academic responsibility from a list of “do nots,” sometimes used as criteria for disciplining Unit 18 faculty, to a list of “dos,” complementary to the academic freedom which we should enjoy and the academic judgment which we exercise. We are not merely “instructional faculty;” we are academics and deserve dignity!

Read our proposal on Article 3

Article 9: Professional Concerns, Meetings, and Programs (Prof. Development Funding) 

Our UC-AFT Table Team shared a proposal on the article that governs the Unit 18 Professional Development Funding pool. The presentation began with Riverside Table Team member Ben Harder reading a blistering email from Stephanie Ann Wilms-Simpson, Chair of the UCR PDF Committee. Her account detailed years of UC mismanagement, hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding that should have gone to lecturers, and repeated efforts by UC to override faculty decisions. Her statement ended: “I am tired of fighting them to belong and be respected.”

Our proposal also demands improved administrative transparency by requiring an annual review of UC’s distribution of the professional development funding. UC-AFT wants to know how many eligible requests did not receive support because the fund had already been exhausted for the fiscal year, and calls on UC to increase the minimum annual funding allocation if there’s professional funding demand that is not being met. We need improved documentation and information sharing as a baseline, which is what this aspect of our proposal requires. 

UC-AFT’s proposal would also increase the funding allocation for Unit 18 faculty from $250/year to $310/year per FTE, and requires that the fund continue to increase annually tracked with inflation for each year the contract is in effect. Finally, our Article 9 proposal says that all unused funds remaining in the pool should get rolled over to the subsequent funding year. Previously only up to $25,000/year was eligible for rollover under the contract. 

Read our proposal on Article 9

Article 23: Summer Session 

Our UC-AFT Table Team proposed major improvements to the summer session article, addressing a glaring double standard: UC expects lecturers to bring the same preparation, expertise and commitment to summer teaching that we bring to the academic year – but when it comes to UC’s commitments to our pay, appointments and instructional support, our contract holds them to a lower standard.

Our biggest demand: same class, same pay! To illustrate the pay gap that is all too common for Summer Session courses, we walked UC through UCI’s Writing Program summer pay policy. Lecturers’ summer courses have the same enrollment, term length, and workload as during the academic year – but they earn 32% less. UCI’s Writing Program is not alone: our contract makes summer pay “by-agreement” and ignores instructional workload credit values for high-workload courses. Our proposal demands fair compensation for summer, and an end to UC’s addiction to seasonal “discount labor.”

We’re also fighting to make summer appointments more secure. Unit 18 faculty often turn down other jobs, prepare courses, and plan their finances around summer teaching, but UC can cancel a summer course for “insufficient enrollment” just days before it begins, leaving lecturers without summer income or time to find other work. We take our commitments seriously, and UC should too. Our proposal demands earlier notice, clearer rules around insufficient enrollment, and compensation for late cancellations.

Finally, we’re demanding better access to TAs, library access, instructional technology, and other support – so summer courses have the same support as academic year courses. Summer students earn real credits, from real courses, taught by real faculty. Our proposal demands that UC step up and treat our summer appointments accordingly: with real compensation and instructional support.

Read our proposal on Article 23

UC’s proposals

University of California negotiators passed across the table proposals on Article 1 (Recognition) and Article 5 (Description of Unit Titles), and a counterproposal on Article 14 (Holidays). Most of UC’s proposed changes involve updating UC Path job codes. Once again, UC avoided addressing our major concerns and made no proposals that would improve the lives of Unit 18 faculty! Nonetheless, the UC-AFT Table Team is reviewing UC’s proposed changes.  

Next Bargaining Session: Nov 5-6 at UC Merced 

Our UC-AFT Table Team will reconvene at UC Merced for two days of contract bargaining on November 5 + 6.

RSVP here and keep an eye out for additional info to come!