State disinvestment in public higher education threatens our values, our careers, and our families. The UC administration has transformed the state’s largest public university into a corporate bureaucracy, with shared campus governance replaced by top-down corporate management structures that devalue teaching and learning. While the university continues to increase its spending on athletics and facilities, undergraduate education gets a reduced share of internal resources, making our fellow teaching faculty (and our librarian colleagues) more vulnerable to budget cuts. Our students have been reduced to customers and our roles deprofessionalized, damaging the quality of undergraduate instruction at UC.
In May, an overwhelming majority of UC-AFT members ratified six bargaining pillars to guide our contract negotiations in 2026. Together, we committed ourselves to achieving the goals of:
Security of employment
We must stand together to ensure all teaching faculty are protected from capricious layoffs, reductions in courses, and arbitrary non-reappointments.
Compensation that reflects the value of our labor
UC administrators consistently undervalue our skills, our mentorship, and our experience. As rising inflation exacerbates the cost-of-living crisis in California, help us fight for pay equity and improved workload protections now!
Building a racial and social justice agenda
We must fight against attempts to resegregate our universities, expel non-citizens, and banish gender non-conforming people from public life by strengthening protections against discrimination and support for teaching faculty and students.
University benefits for those who benefit the university
Help us fight to ensure all teaching faculty access to affordable healthcare, family medical leave, and retirement plans, as well as caps on out-of-pocket expenses.
Real Campus Safety
As educators, we know what makes our campuses and classrooms safe. Help us advance a more expansive vision of campus that protects free speech, defends against surveillance, and improves climate resilience.
Protecting the quality of Instruction
Join our fight to defend the educational mission of the UC and ensure the next generation of Californians have access to high quality instruction, delivered by professional educators who value critical thinking, information literacy, and free inquiry.
Attacks on our university by the current federal administration make our fight for academic freedom, equity in the workplace, and social justice more urgent than ever before. Capitulating to the administration’s demands will not only harm crucial life-saving research and healthcare, and the California taxpayers who have funded it, but will also undermine the educational experience of hundreds of thousands of current and future UC students. We must hold the line for public higher education and demand that the Regents refuse any compromise that undermines our values and puts workers at risk.
UC-AFT is powered by the solidarity and contributions of its members. Join our fight for a fair contract.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Collective Bargaining?
The process by which UC-AFT members collectively negotiate the terms of our employment with management (UCOP). Each campus elects colleagues to represent them at the bargaining table (our Table Team) and all members will have the opportunity to vote to ratify (or reject) the agreement that they reach.
How does bargaining work?
Negotiations begin with a legally mandated period known as “sunshining,” in which representatives from UC-AFT and UCOP present their initial proposals related to the various articles of our existing collective bargaining agreement. At subsequent bargaining sessions, which are usually several hours each held once a month or more, these proposals are either accepted or replied to with a counter proposal from the other side. Once both sides agree to proposals on all outstanding articles, a tentative agreement (TA) will be signed and UC-AFT members will vote to ratify (or reject) the TA. If a strong majority of members vote to ratify the TA, the contract is signed by both parties and goes into effect.
How long will we be in negotiations?
The length of our negotiations will depend on two things: 1) UC management’s intransigence on the issues that matter to teaching faculty and 2) how much collective power we can build to support our table team. The best way to ensure we can win the things we need in a timely manner is to get involved in our contract campaign and encourage your colleagues to do so as well.
Will we go on strike?
Strikes occur when workers collectively withhold their labor for the purpose of winning improvements in working conditions. Following an authorization vote by a majority of the membership, our union may go on strike under certain legal conditions. Under HEERA, the law governing collective bargaining at the UC, these include: when unfair labor practices are committed (known as a ULP strike), or if both sides reach an impasse and are unable to reach an agreement after mediation (known as an economic strike). But if UCOP bargains in good faith, we may be able to reach an agreement without going on strike.
What are your hopes for the new contract?
“I hope our next contract will provide a new level of job security for us lecturers. I want us to join our fellow workers and faculty on campus as regular employees, not piecemeal contractors. I want review and advancement processes to be clear and responsive to all. I want work opportunities to be fairly assigned and abundantly clear to all lecturers who desire to work. And I want the quality of that work to be bolstered by the best protections for academic freedom and pedagogical expertise we can muster. I see no better reason to organize in this moment.”
Joe K., UCB
