WHAT DO UC DOCTORS, NURSES, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, TECHNICIANS AND CLERICALS HAVE THAT WE DON’T?
UC ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONAL STAFF – IT’S IMPORTANT THAT WE TALK!
WHO WE ARE:
We are a group of analysts, specialists, coders, profilers, navigators and many other administrative professional staff at UC who are building a network of our co-workers. We believe that by connecting with each other we can gain a greater voice in our work and take advantage of our legal rights. Our goal is to build a strong network that can effectively address work issues such as time off, workload, protection of our pension and health benefits, improved professional development opportunities, fair compensation and more. We can do better for ourselves and for the important missions we serve. Join us!
WHY BUILD A NETWORK?
Given our level of responsibility and the important work that we do, it is time for administrative professionals to exercise our legal rights under HEERA (Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act). This would permit us to engage in collective bargaining with UC and negotiate a contract that could improve and protect our careers. Our administrative professional group includes thousands and is one of the few staff groups without a union in the UC system. Other staff groups, including professors, doctors, nurses, research assistants, technical staff and clericals, have union contracts. We are falling behind these other work groups!
WHAT ARE OUR GOALS?
Right now, we’d like to start a conversation with our co-workers across the state and we’d like to begin to address our key issues. Our ultimate goal is to gain certification for our work group under HEERA and start the collective bargaining process.
We have identified a number of key issues from many discussions with our co-workers that are priorities we intend to address:
- Workload and work assignments: We intend to negotiate procedures that give administrative professionals an effective voice on workload and work assignment issues.
- Time off: We need to improve our ability to get paid time off when we need it—this is an ongoing issue for our co-workers at many work locations.
- Fair compensation and guaranteed pay raises: We are paid below industry standards and our pay raise history puts us at over 20% behind represented staff groups. It’s time to catch up.
- Job protection and protection from unfair practices and problems at work: We have few—if any—effective protections from unfair treatment, termination, subcontracting or from layoffs. At present, we have limited ability to deal with managers who bully or are unfair in other ways. We intend to negotiate strong protections covering these areas.
- More professional development opportunities including a voice and fairness in career tracks, performance evaluations and promotional systems.
- Protection of our pensions and health benefits.
- Much more! Let’s talk more about these and other priority issues.
OUR PARTNER:
We have reached out to Teamsters Local 2010 to assist us with the massive effort of reaching out to our thousands of co-workers across the state. Teamsters Local 2010 is a powerful labor organization of 14,000 university staff across California and it is affiliated with the 1.4 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). Local 2010 has a long record of winning the strongest contracts in the university system, advocating for university staff on key issues (such as pension protection and anti-bullying legislation), winning legal battles and engaging in smart but tough lobbying to protect and advance university staff.
Local 2010 has premier resources we can count on like skilled staff representatives and attorneys who are experts in the UC system. They also have deep political relationships with political leaders who are key to our success, such as UC Board of Regents members and legislative leaders who are on important budgetary and policy committees.
Most important to our widespread and huge staff group, Local 2010 has a proven track record of successfully organizing large staff groups. It has the capacity and resources to help us in our effort to contact the thousands of staff in our work group and help us through the Public Employment Relations Board process.
Importantly, Local 2010 understands that we are building our organization of administrative professional staff and that it is our responsibility to set our priorities, vote on our leaders and establish an organization that makes sense for us.
WHO IS IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONAL WORK GROUP THAT CAN BE A PART OF THIS EFFORT?
Our work group includes most analysts, specialists, profilers, coders, navigators and many more job titles within the administrative professional work group who are not already represented in collective bargaining by the Teamsters, UPTE, Nurses Union, AFSCME or another labor organization. HEERA broadly includes most administrative professional staff and so most of us are legally able to be a part of this effort.
For some of us it’s hard to determine if you are part of this work group. Please contact us if you aren’t sure and we can help you find the right answer.
IT’S TIME WE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF OUR RIGHTS UNDER HEERA
Many of us do not believe that we can be part of collective bargaining, but the truth is that most of us are eligible. Under HEERA, most UC administrative staff are guaranteed the right to form, participate in and join an employee organization (whether it’s a staff network, union or association), engage in collective bargaining and enjoy the law’s protections.
It is illegal for a manager or supervisor to discriminate against, threaten, intimidate, harass or otherwise retaliate against UC administrative professionals who exercise these legal rights. Under UC policy, managers and supervisors must remain strictly neutral; they cannot interfere with our effort to build a staff network.
CONTACT US! WE NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU! GET UPDATES!
For this effort to be successful, we need to hear from you! To be included in our updates sign up on the form below. All contacts are strictly confidential!
But don’t just fill out this form—contact us!
Wendy Borboa: wborboa@teamsters2010.org, 626-703-8229
Teamsters Local 2010
400 Roland Way, Suite 2010
Oakland, CA 94621
ITS TIME TO CONNECT, TALK AND TAKE ACTION—REACH OUT TODAY!
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OUR RIGHTS UNDER HEERA
HEERA (Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act) is a California state law that gives higher education staff the right to form an employee organization and engage in collective bargaining. So far, the administrative professional work group has not taken advantage of this law. The board that oversees HEERA is the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) and is appointed by the governor.
- We must be “certified” by PERB before we can start collective bargaining with UC to improve and protect our salaries, benefits, time-off policies, workload issues and other working conditions.
- To become certified by PERB we need to collect authorization cards from the majority of our work group and apply to PERB.
- Under HEERA we have the right to talk to our co-workers about our effort to build a staff network and have reasonable access to the workplace, including bulletin boards, mailboxes, etc. We also have the right to distribute information and hold meetings. We can also wear pins, stickers, clothes about our effort and show support for our effort at our office or desk via posters, table tents, etc. We do not have the right (nor would we condone) disruption or interference with the work of an office.
- It is a violation of HEERA (and an unfair labor practice) for UC to interfere with, coerce, discriminate against us or harass us in the exercise of our HEERA rights.