Letters to the Editor: UC defends its contract offer in labor talks to avert a strike
Share Video
For more than a year, union members at UC Davis and UC San Diego have been arguing, often bitterly, over a contract. The union members have been unable to get a contract in place in their respective negotiations. Despite the fact that union leaders have been trying to resolve the problem for a long time, they have been unwilling to make concessions. The UC system’s leaders have offered to give these union members what the union leaders want: an offer that is better than what they have offered for years.
This offer is more than fair. The UC system’s leaders wanted to make changes to the contract that would better the UC system’s finances. They wanted to give the UC system more say in the work force than currently given. They wanted to make changes to job protections in order to attract and keep the most talented workers in the nation. They wanted to offer more to the UC system’s teaching and research staff, who now make little more than workers without the UC system’s support.
In return, the union members have been offered a contract that makes them no better off than workers under a new contract made by the UC system for workers without the UC system’s support.
The UC system is more than willing to negotiate a new contract on these terms, and UC leaders have been willing to negotiate on this basis. This has led to a stalemate in talks that have been going on for months now.
But on the weekend of Sept. 6, the UC system came close to crossing a line, and that line crossed in a way that made a deal impossible to reach.
The UC system’s president, Janet Napolitano, announced that she would be taking over the negotiations, starting with the negotiations in San Diego.
The UC system’s general counsel and chief negotiator, Richard Blum, announced that he plans to meet with union leaders in San Diego on Monday, Sept. 12, to negotiate. They will then negotiate with union representatives after the negotiations in San Diego. They are expected to meet again on Tuesday, Sept. 13.
Under