On May 4-5, our K4 Unit Skilled Trades Bargaining Team again met with management in continued successor contract negotiations, with significant work remaining on economics.
Teamsters made critical progress with both parties agreeing on increasing the on-call rate to 25%, and the university moved off their initial $15 per month cap on increased parking rates to a $10 per month cap—a move in the right direction. However, UCLA continues to insist on passing the 10% city tax completely on to workers.
Management started Monday by proposing wage increases of 4%, 3%, 3%, 3% and 3% for the next five years, stating that they want significant movement on our Teamsters wage proposal. After another back-and-forth discussion, management’s offer was increased to 4.5%, 3,25%, 3.25%, 3%, and 3%.
On the second day, our team made it clear to management that in order to change our proposal on wages, there must be a cap on insurance premium increases. Healthcare premium increases have been excessive and create extreme financial uncertainty for members.
“Skilled Trades workers need to be able to plan for potential–and reasonable–increases in the cost of things like healthcare insurance and parking. Workers don’t have access to multiple streams of income like the UC and cannot afford unknown and excessive increases any time the UC might have to cut into their profit.”
Brian Rojas
K4 Bargaining Team member & UCLA Lead Locksmith
Teamsters and UCLA also both agreed to bring back the Equity Review Committee to provide members an opportunity to advocate for equity increases for their respective trade after the contract is ratified.
Our team met in caucus the morning of May 18 while we wait for UCLA’s response to our healthcare premium cap proposals. We meet with UCLA management again on June 3-4, June 8-9, June 22-23 and June 29-30.
Articles proposed by Teamsters:
- Article 12: Hours of work
- Article 39: Subcontracting
- Article 42: No Strike No Lockout
- Article 45: Wages
Articles proposed by UCLA:
- Article 33: Parking
- Appendix K: Parking Rates
- Appendix L: New Classification Wages (deletion)
- Appendix O: Equity Increases (deletion)
Tentative Agreements
- Article 12: Hours of work
- Article 15: Shift Differentials
- Appendix B: Side Letter Equity Review Committee
