Lecturers Join Clerks in UC Berkeley Strike

Lecturers seeking greater job security and better pay joined clerical workers on the picket lines Wednesday at UC Berkeley, disrupting classes across much of the campus.

Both the lecturers and clerical workers, who began their walkout on the first day of the fall semester Monday, plan to return to work today. They staged the short-term strikes to protest a lack of progress in negotiating new contracts with the nine-campus University of California system.

University officials said they did not know how many classes were postponed, canceled or held off-campus because of the strike, but they added that most appeared to be held as scheduled. In all, 300 of 1,300 classes set for Wednesday had been scheduled to be taught by the nontenured lecturers, who are represented by the UC Council of the American Federation of Teachers.

Fred Glass, a spokesman for the lecturers’ union, estimated that a third to half of all classes were either called off or moved off campus by lecturers and other faculty who supported the strike.

The unions and the UC administration have accused each other of unfair bargaining practices. Glass said the main long-term concern of lecturers is a lack of job security, because many of them work on one-semester or one-year contracts. He accused UC of a pattern of dropping many lecturers just before they reach six years of service, a point at which they are entitled to three-year contracts.

UC officials have denied those charges and said the system doesn’t have the money to meet the unions’ pay demands. The clerical workers, represented by the Coalition of University Employees, have been especially focused on pay. They have asked for a 15% increase over two years, and estimate that the average pay for their members who work full time is about $27,000.

Many students, including those inconvenienced by the walkouts, expressed little interest in the union contract issues.

Ali Bhai, 21, a fourth-year philosophy and mathematics major from Los Angeles, said he wanted matters settled so he could work out his class schedule. “It’s the first week of classes and I’m kind of stressed about getting things in order,” he said.

Ivin Arquiza, a freshman from Vallejo studying business, said he didn’t have much feeling about the strikes, but he expressed annoyance that “no matter where you go around the perimeter, there’s always someone handing out fliers.”

Correspondent Jessica M. Scully in Berkeley contributed to this report