Session Updates

After 6 months of bargaining, the UC finally gave responses to the core demands we’ve been fighting for. You can read the full proposals here, but to summarize:

• 12 month funding: UC rejected guaranteed 12 month appointments, citing the precarious status of higher ed funding. Given that recent reports actually indicate that the UC has a budget surplus, UC should use that surplus to fund us, the workers who keep the UC running. 

• Guaranteed funding for normative time: The UC rejected this aspect of our proposal and refused to lift the 18-quarter cap on teaching appointments. Instead, they suggested lowering our guaranteed appointment percentages from 50% to 25%, at their discretion. 

• Wages: The UC offered us pathetic raises between 1-3% every year for the next three years - effectively a pay cut given inflation. The UC also refused to get rid of campus pay tiers, making the situation worse for the non-prestige campuses like ours. 

• Class sizes: The UC rejected our proposal for class size caps because, in the words of lead negotiator Danny M, “I don’t think that that is something that we’re open to.” While the majority of the Bargaining Team agreed to remove the requirement for the UC to adjust class sizes proactively when caps are violated, BT members from Santa Cruz and Merced opposed that decision. It is clear that we need strong pressure from workers to secure and enforce class size policies for our work and our students’ learning.

• International worker rights: The UC gutted our proposal for funding in the event of visa revocations, and threw us a bone by offering to put $250k in a fund that would support any and all UC international workers seeking legal consultation - insufficient to handle the potential legal defense needs of workers. 

• Childcare and dependent healthcare: The UC proposed maintaining the current article language here, which has no dependent healthcare coverage and leaves parents paying $1043-1556 out of pocket per month: a second rent for parent workers. 

• Divesting retirement funds from war: The UC said defaulting to a war and weapons-free retirement fund for workers would violate their “fiduciary responsibility.” We’re going to keep pushing them on this.

• Bizarrely, the UC also asked us to rescind our proposal to prevent UCPD from using campus facilities to detain or interrogate workers and prohibit the purchase or use of lethal and “less-than-lethal” weapons, and our proposal to improve affordable housing access. The UC clearly does not have any interest in even discussing the way our employer worsens our safety and living conditions.

While we’ve been able to reach a couple of tentative agreements about harassment and discrimination protections and standardizing job titles, UC’s responses make it clear that it’s going to take more pressure from workers for UC to take our economic demands seriously. 

In addition to stonewalling us in bargaining, the UC has been committing unfair labor practices (ULPs) that prevent us from reaching a fair contract and threaten our working conditions. For both these reasons, our statewide union has announced that a Strike Authorization Vote (SAV) will be held on February 5-13th.It’s time for us to start preparing in our departments for the SAV and to take labor action if necessary. 

Every department should plan to meet in the next few weeks to talk about the demands that are currently on the table, talk through questions and concerns and make a plan for next steps to win, which should include:

• Getting a department OC together topower map your department. Using your department list, start to break down who is working in what classes, labs, research groups, etc. 

• Scheduling adepartment town hall (ideally before January 29th) to discuss the SAV and usethis checklist to help make a plan together. Make sure you invite each member of your department. One-on-one contact is key here!

• Starting to draft a strike readiness letter as a department (see thetown hall planning guide for some examples) 

You may find this Strike FAQ for Rank-and-File Workers at UC and the Researcher and Lab Strike Plan helpful throughout this prep.

Here are updates from union leadership:

Tentative agreements on Discipline/Dismissal, Employment Files

These tentative agreements improve protections ASEs have when facing discipline at work. ASEs:

• forced UC to back off attempts to introduce a new disciplinary process for “job abandonment”

• won the right to receive advance notice of investigatory meetings during an investigatory leave
-guaranteed that disciplinary documents can be removed from employment files upon request after 2 years

ASEs and management also traded proposals back and forth on ASE Classifications and Grievance and Arbitration, two critical articles that clarify ASEs’ job duties and allow us to enforce all of our rights and benefits under the contract. Following these proposals and counterproposals, tentative agreements are increasingly close. ASEs also made a proposal on Union Security.

Five more tentative agreements

ASEs reached five new tentative agreements with UC management today on key articles, including ASE Classifications and Grievance and Arbitration. For the first time in our union’s history, our contract clearly defines the job duties of TAs, Associate Instructors, readers, and tutors, meaning significantly stronger protections against misclassification. ASEs also achieved a major victory on Grievance and Arbitration, making the process of enforcing our contractual rights faster and more worker-friendly by:

• Eliminating bifurcation (the practice of splitting arbitrations into two separate hearings), speeding the time to resolve disputes,

• And establishing standing arbitration dates throughout the year, making it easier to have our disputes heard by an arbitrator.

ASEs also reached tentative agreements on a side letter simplifying job titles for instructional ASEs, Union Security, and ASE Recognition and Titles.

Contract Extension and What’s Next

The past four days were the final bargaining dates scheduled for December. While ASEs have made a lot of progress through all the pressure we’ve put on UC management thus far, management is still committing Unfair Labor Practices and bargaining in bad faith, preventing a full, final agreement. You can read about the Unfair Labor Practice charges ASEs have filed at https://www.uaw4811.org/2025-ulps. The ASE Bargaining Team scheduled 5 more days of bargaining in January and signed a one-month extension of our contract at the end of today’s session. When ASEs return from the holidays in January, it’ll be on all of us to ratchet up the pressure even further to force UC management to bargain in good faith, make movement on our key priorities like protections for international workers, job security, and fair and stable pay, and reach a fair agreement. As always, visit https://www.uaw4811.org/ase-bargaining to see all updates and proposals.

November 13 and 18 were our 10th and 11th bargaining sessions in Los Angeles and Berkeley.

TL;DR: We proposed our wages. And we passed back proposals on: international worker rights; divesting retirement funds from the war machine; and removing our 18-quarter cap on teaching.

Read on for highlights from the session. You can also check the live tracker for updates.

• Our union proposed Wages that (if we also win our demand for 12-month funding) ensures that by 2028, the lowest paid TAs and GSRs would make $56,400-$65,300/year. It would also eliminate the pay tiers between campuses and ensure GSRs and TAs are paid the same (Wages). We also proposed eliminating the 18-quarter cap on teaching for the UC, which would help those of us who take longer than 6 years to finish our degrees (UAW’s proposed Appointment Security article). 

• This wages explainer provides more information about what would happen in each year. While the UC did not have a response to our proposal other than to ask how much it would cost them, it’s clear that the crucial demand here is for the 12 months of funding for the entirety of our time in grad school. In a moment of increased precarity at the UC and in higher education more generally, it’s crucial we fight for increased job security.

• The UC once again ignored our proposed class size cap policy. It’s clear why they don’t want this and we do – it’s an important bulwark against the UC increasing class sizes to increase revenue while slashing cohort sizes and jobs for other academic workers (UC’s proposed ASE Workload article).

• After UC responded to our demand to divest worker retirement funds (DCP) from war and weapons manufacturing, saying such a demand “conflicts with [the UC’s] fiduciary responsibility,” we passed back another version of the proposal that maintains its integrity and more clearly articulates why this is feasible for the University to implement (UAW’s proposed DCP article).

• UC is once again trying to codify their ability to discipline and dismiss workers for missing 4 days of work in a row, what they’re calling “job abandonment.” This is a backdoor way to fire people for going on strike, and we should not accept this under any terms (UC’s Discipline and Dismissal Proposal). We once again received a counter-proposal on immigration from the UC, which made virtually no movement towards us. (UC’s proposed Immigration article) 

Other articles proposed back and forth included: Grievance and Arbitration, Non-Discrimination and Respectful Work Environment, Past Practice, Recognition, Training and Orientation, Union Access, Union Security, Waiver.

Tuesday, October 28th was the ninth bargaining session for our new contract in Berkeley. 

TL;DR: We proposed our demand for 12-month funding to normative time to degree and reiterated the need for class size limits. Meanwhile, the UC continued to refuse to address divestment or funding security for international workers who face lost visas and need legal support. 

Here are links to what was proposed in yesterday’s session. You can also check the live tracker for updates.  

• Our union proposed 12 month funding for normative time to degree for grad workers (Appointment Notification). The demand for 12-months of funding for the entirety of our time in grad school has been a core demand on our campus for years. This demand is especially potent at this time of year, as workers come off of a summer being un- or under-employed and face Broketober (at quarter campuses workers do not receive their first pay check until Nov 1). Making matters worse than they already are, the UC’s so-called “budget crisis" means an increasing number of workers scramble to find summer funding, including international workers who risk being barred from reentering the country if they leave. We can put an end to the precarity we all face: UC should fund all of us for all 12 months of the year. 

• The UC responded to our demands for funding security for international workers who lose work authorization,and provide legal defense funds. This time, the UC said it made them “uncomfortable” to think about providing bare minimum support for their own employees and expressed concern that stating their support for international and undocumented workers could lead to legal challenges from the Trump administration. (Immigration) 

• For the first time since we proposed it in July, UC responded to our demand to divest worker retirement funds (DCP) from war and weapons manufacturing by saying such a demand “conflicts with [the UC’s] fiduciary responsibility.” Given thousands of workers around the state went on strike for divestment in Spring 2024, UC shouldn’t be surprised that this is a demand workers care about and that we should continue to fight for. 

• We reiterated our demand for class size limits, another important demand given UC’s austerity-driven attempts to give us more students without increased pay. (Workload)

• Other articles proposed included Classifications, Non-Discrimination & Respectful Work Environment and Fee Remission, and Grievance and Arbitration. Both sides reached Tentative Agreements on Definitions and GSR Recognition. 

• Our union proposed increasing the monthly childcare reimbursement for parent workers to $700/month for one child and an additional $350/month for additional children ($8400 yearly), and raising the age of eligibility from 12 to 15 years old. For context, childcare in UC’s own childcare centerscosts an average of $2000/month -- a second rent, especially for those in family housing. While a minority of bargaining representatives pushed to propose covering the entire cost of childcare, the majority of the bargaining team opted for a lower number and the compromise position was to propose $8400/year, which raises the current stipend by $3800 to cover one-third of the average monthly cost of childcare. We should be prepared to refuse any concessions to this number and secure financial relief for parent workers! (Childcare) 

• Our union once again reiterated our demands for funding security for international workers who lose work authorization, requiring that UC notify workers if ICE is present on campus, and provide legal defense funds. And once again, UC’s racist attitude towards international workers was on display as they tried to evade basic responsibility for their employees: insisting that workers “make choices” that lead to visa revocation, fixated on whether “felons” would be eligible and questioned whether they would have to notify the community if “a student has a parent that works for ICE.” (Immigration)

• The UC made a package proposal on Management and Academic Rights and No Strikes. On the positive side, their No Strikes proposal doesn’t include the current language from the GSR contracts that restricts the right to respect the picket lines of other unions. However, the UC proposed adding language stating that the academic requirements of graduate programs are a management right not subject to union control. We’ve already seen in the past few years that UC is trying to quell grad worker militance by slashing program enrollment, limiting normative time to degree and work eligibility, and even proposing using AI to replace grading labor. But our learning and working conditions cannot be deemed a “management right” - we should continue demanding guaranteed work for 6 years.

• Our union also made proposals on Respectful Work Environment & Nondiscrimination and Union Access and Rights which are similar to those from a few weeks ago. The UC also made proposals on Grievance and Arbitration, Definitions. 

The UC made a counterproposal on immigration that makes virtually no progress towards the protections workers need to live and work securely under the Trump administration. Management’s proposal includes:

1. No commitment to financial or institutional support for workers facing visa revocation

2. No commitment to a legal defense fund

3. No commitment to protect workers from punishment based on protected speech

The boss also doubled down on their proposal to endlessly delay justice for workers facing harassment, discrimination, and bullying. 

We don’t need to accept these proposals. We should continue to fight to win demands that we and our coworkers across the state know we need and deserve. This is especially true as we gear up to pass over proposals on important economic issues that workers care about in forthcoming sessions, like guaranteed 12-month funding for 6 years, childcare stipends that cover the actual cost of childcare, and centralized emergency funding for labs facing federal funding cuts. 

At yesterday’s session, our union also passed the UC proposals on the following articles: Grievance and Arbitration, Leaves, Union Access, and Union Security.

The boss didn’t respond positively to any of these. Instead, UC’s lead negotiator Danny M responded obstinately, at one point calling our proposal to make the grievance process more equitable “galling.” At another point, when our union pushed back on the contradictory language included in one of the UC’s proposals, telling them “That just doesn’t do it, sorry,” Danny M sassily replied “I’m sorry too.” 

By this point in his career, Danny M should have better table-talk tactics than this kind of childish foot-stomping and whining, usually reserved for temper tantrums. 

Tuesday, September 16th was the sixth bargaining session for our new contract in LA. Read on for highlights from the session, which include our union winning a guarantee that disabled workers can receive accommodations without a diagnosis and our proposals for 100% dependent healthcare coverage and a worker-controlled healthcare plan. Also, keep reading for a run-down of UC’s less-than-ideal proposals from this week, which serve as examples of what we should be prepared to fight against in our struggle for real job security and year-round pay.

Our union proposed:

• Health Benefits – creating a worker-run health plan outside of UCShip that includes 100% dependent care coverage and no premiums. 

• Reasonable Accommodations– Workers across the state have felt strongly that they should not have to provide a diagnosis to the UC to be able to receive disability accommodations, and that the UC should provide workers with immediate workplace adjustments during the accommodation process. Yesterday both sides voted to “tentatively agree” (TA) to the union’s proposal with these changes. While we’ve reached agreements in previous bargaining sessions, this is the first big win we’ve seen at the table during this bargaining cycle. We should be proud of this win, and feel energized to keep fighting for what workers want, need, and deserve in upcoming sessions.

The UC proposed:

• Appointment Security – This is close to our current contract protections, but it lacks some important changes, including eliminating the 18 quarter limit for teaching at UC, that our union will be proposing this Fall. 

• Appointment Notification – Here again, UC’s proposal misses some crucial elements that workers across the state, and especially at UCSC, feel are crucial to include in our next contract — including a 12-month funding guarantee for ALL workers, whether we are usually employed as teachers or researchers. UC’s proposal also aims to strengthen management rights; it would codify their “timesheet” system that surveils workers and would further enable the boss to “nullify” offers of employment entirely if a worker takes too long to accept the offer. 

• Summer Session – As many workers have experienced, Summer Session currently strips workers of many job security protections we have codified in our contract the rest of the year. This proposal from the UC would decrease wages for summer teaching. In Fall, our union will be proposing to ensure 12-month funding with the same protections and pay all year long. 

• Workload – UC’s proposal, specifically for teaching workers, would streamline the way that workers are appointed as GSIs. However, it eliminates the workload protections for those GSIs, similar to the lack of workload and appointment security protections in Summer Session.

Lastly, UCLA Math TAs testified at bargaining about how the department abruptly halved their appointment percentages, cutting pay to as low as $18,000/year. UAW 4811 has filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge because it’s illegal for management to make unilateral changes to working conditions — especially while we are bargaining for fair wages and job security. As the University makes every effort to skirt our most pressing demand for job security while sitting across from us at the table, the boss continues undermining our current contract with their shady behavior in departments like UCLA Math. ULPs give us a legal right to strike, and we should be prepared to take advantage of this right when the time comes to escalate our fight for job security and more.

Wednesday, September 3rd, was the fifth bargaining session for our new contract in Berkeley. Read on for highlights from the session, which included our union passing back a proposal to the UC on our Immigration article and our attempt to pass the UC a proposal that would essentially eliminate our “No Strikes” clause, among other things. 

Here are some more details regarding what was proposed by UAW in yesterday’s session and links to the various proposals. You can also check the live tracker for updates. 

Despite the UC’s rejection of our proposals for economic support for international workers to be able to pay rent and survive, our union once again asserted that the UC must provide financial security for international workers who lose work authorization (Immigration). The UC lead negotiator Daniel Menezes responded recalcitrantly to our proposed article, once again making excuses for why the University should not have to help workers who’ve suddenly lost visa status due to no fault of their own. In an especially egregious moment representing the University’s position, Danny M suggested the University should not have to help workers who have “felony convictions,” a comment that is in particularly bad taste given the level of right-wing state repression immigrants and international workers are facing right now. 

Our union also rejected UC’s proposal on the No Strikes clause, in order to assert our rights to sympathy strike in solidarity with other unions (No Strikes). This is particularly relevant given that our union siblings in AFSCME and UPTE are preparing for strikes in fall, while AFT prepares to start negotiations this winter and and two new units of academic employees joining UAW are in negotiations for their first contracts: the Research and Public Service Professionals (RPSPs) and Student Service and Advising Professionals (SSAPs). If Danny M didn’t like our union’s pass-back on Immigration, he REALLY disliked this article, which we appropriately renamed to “No Lockouts” rather than “No Strikes.” Looking like he was about to laugh at our proposal, he immediately commented that “it’s an absolute non-starter from the university to not have a no-strikes policy in the contract,” and said plainly that the University “will never agree to this.” 

We have seen firsthand how important it is to be in solidarity with other workers on campus, and how much we need other workers’ solidarity with our efforts. We know that when lecturers and senate faculty refuse to scab our grades, our strikes have much more power; and when we honor our conscience and refuse to cross other workers’ picket lines, we effectively shut down the university. The boss’s refusal to consider our proposal, after they already made it clear they aren’t taking the current crisis that international and immigrant workers are experiencing right now, is a demonstration that they are not working with us, but against us in fighting the egregious attacks on higher education and immigrant communities in the U.S. right now. 

The UC rejected our proposal for paid parental leave and immigration leave (Leaves). Workers in the room — rank and file members and the bargaining team — all seemed to agree that these proposals are pretty egregious, mainly because they simply honor California State Law rather than giving us genuine employment benefits. 

Our union once again proposed protections from abusive conduct, including robust definitions of workplace abuse and an end to time limits on when workers can report abusive conduct (Respectful Work Environment; Non-Discrimination). We also once again rejected the UC’s attempt to institute a clause that would fire workers for missing 3 days of work in an attempt to fire striking workers (Employment Files; Discipline and Dismissal). 

Finally, both sides agreed to adopt ASE’s current contract language (“CCL”) for the following articles: Labor Management Meetings, Work Incurred Injury and Illness, Severability, Health & Safety, Posting, and Travel. 

But the core issues affecting our livelihoods remain unaddressed, and it’ll take all of us to win the protections we need: 12 months, no tiers, 6 years of funding to kill the fear!  

Tuesday, August 19th, was the fourth bargaining session for our new contract. Read on for highlights from the session, which include a disappointing response from the UC on our Immigration article rejecting economic guarantees for international workers and another counter from the UC that would make it easier to fire workers for striking. 

Here are some more details regarding what was proposed by UAW in yesterday’s session and links to the various proposals. You can also check the live tracker for updates. 

• Our union proposed 20 days of PTO per year for researchers (Personal Time Off) 

• Our union proposed implementing a discounted carpool parking permit, expanding regional transit passes for Bay Area, San Diego and Davis workers, and e-bike discounts (Parking and Transit) 

• Our union proposed instituting a yearly survey on worker housing costs over which the UC and the union will “meet and discuss” twice a year (Housing). 

The UC issued their offensive response to our union’s proposal on Immigration. Two important takeaways:

• The UC rejected our union’s proposal to provide international workers who lose their work authorization with support funds. The support funds initially proposed by UAW would provide a way for workers to continue to pay their rent and bills while seeking to restore their work status.

• The UC also rejected our union’s proposal that international workers who are unable to return to the US can work remotely.

The parts of the immigration article that the UC rejected were about the boss actually putting its money where its mouth is. Relying on the justification that UC can’t pay people without work authorization, the UC is conveniently forgetting that they pay student fellowships and stipends all the time, that remote work outside the US was permitted during the pandemic, and the UC has already agreed to provide (limited) legal defense funds for international workers targeted by the Trump administration.  

Ultimately, the UC’s approach to bargaining with us so far appears to be attempting to spend as little money and maintain as much control and discretion as possible over our working conditions. In this session, the UC once again proposed adding in a “job abandonment” provision that would effectively allow them to fire workers for striking. The UC also dug in their heels about our previous proposal to remove medical documentation requirements for disabled workers; removing these requirements would allow workers with disability to immediately access accommodations without paying exorbitant medical fees. 

In order to codify material gains for workers, particularly for international workers facing ongoing federal attacks and visa revocations, our departments and campuses need to get organized over concrete demands affecting our livelihood. As we gear up for another school year, we need to be talking to our departments about our shared demands and work collectively to strategize about how we will win them at and beyond the bargaining table.

Bargaining for our new contract began in July. On Tuesday, August 12th, our union sat down at the table for the third time this summer with the UC. There were about 60 workers (including the bargaining team) on the UAW side sitting across from the UC’s team of 21 at the Krutch Theater on the Clark Kerr campus in Berkeley. Most of the workers in attendance were from Berkeley, with a handful from Davis and Santa Cruz. Keep reading for some updates on the highlights of the session. You can check the live tracker to see the full language of these proposals from our side and the UC.

~~MORNING~~

The morning session started at about 10 AM. Our union told the UC that we’d be passing over three proposals in the morning, and the UC said they’d pass over five proposals afterwards. 

We started by proposing a new article on community safety. It features key demands to reduce policing on our campuses that were included in the priority platform voted on at the bargaining convention back in November. We’re demanding that the UCPD be prohibited from using facilities, lab spaces, classrooms, or other workspaces for interrogations, incarceration, confinement, or training. It would also ban the University from purchasing and using lethal and “less-than-lethal” weapons and militarized equipment and would require the UC to notify workers if outside law enforcement agency and/or private security is called to campuses, including university-owned housing, and would give workers the right to work elsewhere in those instances. This article would be a huge success if it is codified in our new contract, and we should fight for it. 

Next, our union proposed changes to existing contract language on the “Defined Contribution and University Retirement Plans,” or “DCP” as it’s more commonly referred to. This would divest our retirement plans from weapons and ammunition manufacturing and fossil fuels, and ensure that our retirement funds are “in good accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.” The demand to divest grad workers’ retirement funds (DCP) from weapons manufacturing is an outgrowth of our strike demands last year, after which UC quietly sold off their direct investments in 4 genocide-profiteering companies and continues efforts by academic workers and students to force our institutions to divest and demilitarize, permanently. 

And after that, our union passed over a reasonable accommodations proposal which would eliminate medical documentation as a requirement for being able to access needs requests. The lead negotiator for the UC, Daniel Menezes, really didn’t like this one. He said that the UC “vehemently disagrees” with the union’s position on this, and accused our union of undermining the UC’s legal right to ask for medical documentation. Seems like the UC really has their heels dug in on this one. We’ll need to mobilize workers who have dealt with delays in their access needs being met due to this medical documentation requirement so we can demonstrate to the UC how important this issue is for workers in our unit. If you have a story you want to share, respond to this email.  

Next, the UC passed over four proposals: Union Security, GSR Personal Time Off (PTO), Respectful Work Environment, Non-Discrimination, and Workspace Materials, which both sides came to a tentative agreement on.  

In their PTO proposal, the UC’s lead negotiator Daniel Menezes tried to blame their unwillingness to give workers PTO on the University’s “financial crisis” and claimed that “there are other priorities like wages where [the University] should be making investments.” Hey Daniel, we agree that wages should be a priority! But not at the expense of PTO. And regarding the UC’s so-called “financial crisis,” we urge you to look into the research report on liquidation of the blue and gold pool that Santa Cruz workers developed, which might give you some ideas on how this “crisis” can be remediated. 

In their respectful work environment, non-discrimination, and union security article proposals, the UC’s position is that they could put our grievances on respectful harassment and discrimination on hold indefinitely (i.e., “abeyance”) in favor of their internal Title IX / abusive conduct investigations. They also proposed that they should be the only party allowed to define what counts as abusive conduct at work. 

As we’ve seen multiple times this year, we know the University wants to play judge, jury and executioner about abusive work environments or unjust discipline, preventing workers from utilizing the grievance process as a tool to hold our bosses accountable. It seems likely that the UC is also responding to our proposal on this article, which not only demands a more expedited grievance process, but also would enshrine protections for academic freedom and free speech that UC has been brutally repressing this past year (see P. 9 of this proposal we passed the university on July 8th). 

After a packed first hour of the day, the UC left the room and both sides went to caucus and have lunch around 11:10 AM. 

~~AFTERNOON~~

We came back from lunch at 1:20 PM. Our union offered a counter-proposal to the UC’s discipline and dismissal proposal, which the UC passed over to us in LA on July 22nd. The UC’s proposal had egregious language that would make it possible to fire workers for failing “to report to work for three (3) or more consecutive scheduled workdays without an approved leave or after an approved leave respires.” Our union sees this as another version of a “no strikes” clause, and we should NOT accept this language. Moreover, our proposal aims to ensure workers have the right to union representation in investigatory meetings. 

Lastly, we presented a new article on transitional funding, much of which came directly from the Researchers Against War organizing starting in October 2023 and leading up to our 2024 strike. Workers developed the demand for transitional funding as a way for researchers to divest from the war machine and support calls from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions. Then, in Fall 2024, the UC announced a transitional funding pilot program for graduate student researchers to have funding to switch labs for reasons that might include “departure of the advisor,” “incompatibility in research goals, or irresolvable differences in the advisor-advisee relationship.” We read this pilot program as a response from the university to the demands that we struck over in 2024, and we think we can win an even stronger permanent transitional funding program in this next contract.

After this, we caucused a bit longer, and both sides were able to come to a tentative agreement on “workspace,” (YAY) using the final version that the Union passed to the UC earlier in the day. The day’s session ended around 3 PM. 

~~FINAL THOUGHTS~~

Many of the demands presented yesterday are the direct result of campus and departmental organizing in the past few years, and would change the lives of thousands of workers. Whatever we ultimately win in bargaining will be the result of the power we as workers are able to build on the ground.

Bargaining for our new contract has begun. On Tuesday, 7/22 our union held the second bargaining session with the UC regarding our upcoming contract in Pico Rivera (in the LA area) at the UAW office. Here are some updates on the highlights of the session (you can check the live tracker to see the full language of these proposals from our side and the UC). 

Morning Session:

The session began at 10 AM in the UAW union hall in Pico Rivera, LA.

The UC began by making proposals on “Discipline and Dismissal,” keeping Current Contract Language (CCL) for a handful of articles, and rejected the Union’s proposal from the last session on “Employment Files.” You can see the full text of these proposals here. 

Our bargaining team proposed the “Workload” article, which includes setting department-specific class sizes and maximum student-teacher ratios developed in consultation with departments and the union. This is an important issue we’ve seen in recent years as the UC slashes grad cohorts and admits more undergrad students, causing speed-up in our work and degrading the quality of instruction. Departments across multiple divisions of the UC have organized townhalls to discuss this issue since 2022. Grads in the Santa Cruz History of Consciousness department and Berkeley humanities departments, for example, have organized meetings between grads, faculty, and staff units to work against growing class sizes. This same workload article also has a provision that would enable GSRs to accrue more PTO if they are being asked to work at night and on weekends. 

In the morning session when representatives for the UC passed over their proposals, the boss made their interests clear: their goal is to expand control over worker discipline, particularly for striking. The UC proposed adding language to dismiss workers for “job abandonment,” which would include not showing up for 3 days of work. This is clearly an attempt to prevent workers from taking labor action – whether that be our own strike, or a sympathy strike with other workers on our campus. This is a clear effort to undermine solidarity with our union siblings in AFSCME, UPTE, and AFT, who have asked us not to cross their picket lines before. It also would undo work we’ve done to build strong connections with faculty and staff in our departments and labs, many of whom have agreed not to report striking grad workers. The current contract language proposal would also codify the SR language for no-strikes for all workers, which prohibits sympathy strikes (where this is currently more flexible in the ASE contract). The UC also rejected the union’s proposal to expunge warning letters from employment files after 6 months, which is an effort to continue disciplining thousands of workers with bogus warning letters from the 2024 strike.

After this, the Bargaining Team passed over proposals on Union Access and Security, and a proposal that countered the UC’s on workspace and instructional support. 

Around 11 AM we convened in a caucus, where both sides went to separate rooms and discussed the articles on the table, and there was a break from 11:30 AM – 1 PM. Workers discussed the importance of workload protections, especially in STEM where GSRs have overnight and weekend work and PIs have used existing leave policies to limit researchers’ flexibility/days off. There was also discussion of the increasing class sizes we’ve all seen and the importance of class size ratios that are responsive to the needs of different departments and programs. 

Afternoon Session: 

The afternoon session started just after 1PM. The UC started by introducing their Grievance & Arbitration counter-proposal. The Union proposed Leaves/PTO: two important changes would be to increase paid pregnancy/parental leave from 8 weeks to 16 weeks, and bereavement leave from 5 to 10 days.

UC went to a caucus at 1:50pm and never came back, so after a brief caucus the session ended around 2:15/2:30pm. 

Final Thoughts

The UC’s behavior yesterday – what they brought to the table, and their attitude towards our proposals – showed that the boss is trying to establish more control over our work. If the UC were to succeed in constricting our leaves and PTO, that would limit how flexible our work arrangements can be. This would be a familiar but escalatory action to the “leave reporting forms” we saw the UC roll out after the 2022 strike, which they used to pay-dock thousands of workers last summer. The UC is aiming to solidify these incursions on our time with contractual measures; this is worth fighting against. 

The session was held in a multi-purpose room in the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the edge of the Cal campus. The lead UC negotiator (this year’s Nadine for those here in 2022) is Daniel Menezes, who did 99% of the talking on that side of the room. Everyone was doing a lot of typing, however. Maybe they also have signal chats or a “google teams” chat – whatever chat app HR professionals use. Menezes claimed he was taking ‘umbrage’ at some perceived implications about the current grievance and arbitration process at one point, and he also made a point to frame his questions when it came to immigration with the ‘unprecedented times/difficult for everyone’ provisos, so there is a certain amount of the appearance of humanity trying to be projected/awareness that it looks very bad to be unsympathetic to immigration protections right now. Overall, it was definitely a ‘united front’ approach from the UC (I guess predictably). Having attended zoom bargaining in 2022, it was definitely instructive (if not exactly fun) to be in the room and have more of a sense of the various tensions/frustrations, especially between negotiators who have encountered each other during other union/labor relations processes. It seems as though the UC side is much more comfortable and feels like they have more control with no remote option (let us not forget their screen-share mishaps of bargaining last time), so it helps for us to show up as much as possible. 

Morning Session:

Starting at 10:05 AM, members of the UAW and UC bargaining teams introduced themselves. Interestingly there were several faculty on the UC side of the room. Then, our side went directly into a presentation about the major issues animating our bargaining campaign: fair and stable pay, job security, and immigration rights. Issues we’ve been organizing around — like 12-month funding for all workers; transitional funding for scientists who conscientiously object to their funding source; bridge funding for labs being defunded federally; and stronger protections for international workers under attack by the Trump administration — are all demands we’ll be fighting for this bargaining cycle. 

After our presentation, the UC passed over proposals on “Workspace,” “Required Training,” and “Employment Files.” This was mostly similar to the language in previous contracts, though a clause was included that declared our workplace materials would only be provided “at the University’s sole discretion.” This would mean that the UC would have the right to not provide us with materials if they thought they couldn’t afford it, and would take away our ability to grieve issues around not having certain materials required to complete our work. This aligns with and would codify a pattern of austerity we’ve already been seeing in our departments and is clearly opposed to our interests. 

Our Bargaining Team passed over a proposal package on non-discrimination and respectful work environment to the UC negotiators at 10:54 AM. Then there was about 10 minutes of quibbling about why we chose to pass over a “package deal” on the first day of bargaining. (Just to be clear, our union likes package deals because if the package deal is not accepted in full, our union is reserving our right to make a new proposal on these issues, and therefore avoids locking us into the language from these proposals. We seemed to come to an agreement on this and were able to move on.) Then, the University said they would need to look over the package of proposals in a caucus and a caucus was called through lunch, from just after 11 AM until 1 PM. 

In a caucus both sides go to separate rooms and talk. In this caucus it was fairly open who talked between the rank-and-file and the bargaining team, though the BT was calling on people as they raised their hands. 

Afternoon Session:

The afternoon session started just after 1 PM. The UC said they would need to consult more with their team before asking questions about the proposal package we had passed them. Then, our union bargaining team asked questions about the proposals the UC passed over to us in the morning. After that, the UC passed us a proposal on the Grievance and Arbitration article. Our union told them that our side would need time to look over the proposal before asking any questions about it. 

Then, at 1:26 PM, our Bargaining Team proposed an article on immigration. In presenting the article, we made it clear to the UC that they had a choice to make: The UC can either stand with us, support the future of public research and higher education, and defend its workers, or the UC can capitulate to the Trump administration and secure the destruction of public research and education as we know it. In response, lead negotiator Daniel Menezes said: “I really appreciate the proposal. I know this issue is of critical importance and certainly very relevant.” It’s still to be determined, though, whether the UC will put their money where their mouth is in recognizing the true and dire importance that this article is addressing by fighting with us, not against us, in our struggle for international workers’ rights.

After this, our union proposed a caucus to look over the UC’s proposal on grievance and arbitration. The next session began at about 2:30 PM. When we returned, our union passed our own proposed articles on employment files and  grievance and arbitration to the UC. The main proposed change in the employment files was to strike discipline from records after 6 months (Daniel Menezes said that the UC would likely not agree to this change, especially if it’s a case of a felony charge, such as a serious assault); for grievance and arbitration, the idea behind the proposed changes was to speed up the process and remove the UC’s ability to slow it down. 

With both the UC and UAW needing to go back to their respective sides to discuss the various proposals that had been put on the table, the session adjourned at 3:17 PM.