Strikes Shut Down Some UC Classes

Scores of classes at five University of California campuses were canceled Monday as unionized lecturers and clerical workers began a two-day strike to protest stalled contract talks and to highlight their job complaints.

The rare multi-campus walkout hit the Santa Cruz and Riverside campuses hardest, but also led to scattered cancellations and service disruptions at Irvine, Santa Barbara and Davis.

The two unions’ actions reflected an escalation in protests by the lecturers and clerical workers, which struck briefly in late August at UC Berkeley to call attention to concerns about contract negotiations, job security and pay.

Lecturers and other nontenured faculty members increasingly are protesting what they see as their second-tier status at California’s four-year universities.

The effect of the strikes widened as some UC teaching assistants, readers and tutors refused to cross picket lines.

At UC Santa Cruz, a union official said that one-half to three-quarters of classes had been called off. A UC Santa Cruz spokeswoman, Elizabeth Irwin, could not give a specific figure but said attendance had been “much reduced.”

Irwin said some of the classes may have been held off-campus by faculty members who chose not to cross picket lines. She added that local bus service had been disrupted by Teamster-represented drivers who would not drive onto the campus. Likewise, most union construction workers on UC Santa Cruz’s five major construction projects stayed away Monday.

At UC Riverside, university spokesman Ricardo Duran said more than 100 classes had been called off. The cancellations were particularly widespread in the English department, where about 80% of classes were not held.

At Irvine, where lecturers teach 22% of classes, the lecturers’ union said that as many as 25% of classes had been called off, but a university official put the percentage at 2%.

Union officials said they had not struck at UCLA or UC San Diego because they need more time to organize their members there.

The UC system and the striking unions, both of which are working on expired contracts, have traded charges of bad faith bargaining.

Leaders of the lecturers’ union, the University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT), say they are especially concerned about job security. Lecturers are non-tenure-track, lower-paid instructors who often work on one-term or one-year contracts.

Union officials have accused UC of a pattern of dropping lecturers just before they reach six years of service, at which point they would be entitled to three-year contracts. UC denies the accusation.

Lecturers also have long-running complaints about pay. According to UC figures, tenured or tenure-track professors last year made an average of $93,754, versus $45,519 for full-time and part-time lecturers, some of whom have taught for more than 20 years.

The lecturers’ union disputes UC’s pay figures, contending that lecturers tend to earn from $37,000 to $42,000, depending on their years of experience in the system.

Clerical workers, represented by the Coalition of University Employees, have 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. UC officials have responded by offering a 3.5% increase covering two years, saying they can’t afford to meet the union’s demand.

The clerical workers say they also want UC to take steps to curb repetitive stress injuries caused by computer use.

And they seek to curb UC’s practice of keeping new hires on temporary status to avoid giving them medical and retirement benefits.

On the UC Irvine campus Monday, Andrew Tonkovich, a composition teacher and president of the UC-AFT local, mingled with students, distributing fliers and exhorting onlookers to join the picket line.

“This whole system operates on a mass exploitation of a class of temporary employees called lecturers,” Tonkovich said. “You get people who are frustrated and feel vulnerable because they have no guarantees.”

UC Irvine was the only one of the five campuses where clerical workers did not join the strike, but some teaching assistants participated by canceling their classes.

“We’re out here because that could be us someday,” said Susanne Hall, a graduate student in English who teaches a composition class.

Professor Glen Mimura, who has taught in the Asian American studies department for five years, was one of a few tenure-track professors who joined the strike to support the lecturers, too.

“They’re the ones who translate our research into meaningful knowledge in the classroom,” he said. “Those people in particular deserve compensation.”

Senior Kristie Lopez, who has two Teamsters in her family, was diplomatic as she contrasted Monday’s protest with others she has attended.

“It’s very civilized,” said Lopez, 28. “But these are teachers, not truck drivers.”

Lopez, who said none of her classes had been canceled, expressed support for the lecturers.

“It really diminishes the weight of all those degrees when they can’t even get job stability,” she said.