UC Riverside Faculty Association

Dear UC Riverside faculty,

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Dear President Drake,

On October 26th, every UC employee received an Open Enrollment notice with new rates for healthcare benefits. UCOP presented these changes to UC Unions and the Council of UC Faculty Associations just three days before the start of Open Enrollment, leaving no opportunity for any input.

The increases in the employee health benefits share are unprecedented and alarming. Costs for healthcare benefits will be going up between 15% and 193% per month, depending on one’s plan and coverage. For example, if you currently pay for Kaiser for yourself and your spouse/partner, your cost will increase by 74% on January 1. An employee who insures themselves and their whole family (spouse/partner + children) through UC Health Savings Plan will see an increase of 171%. Every health benefit plan and coverage tier is affected, and these changes will impact the over 200,000 employees who receive benefits in the UC system.

Struck by the exorbitant increases, the UC unions pressed for answers. UCOP representatives cited inflation, deferred preventative care during the pandemic, rising drug costs, and clinical workforce shortages as root causes for these price increases. While these are all real issues impacting healthcare costs everywhere, when pushed for details about how prices were negotiated and set for UC employees, UCOP’s answers were unsatisfactory and lacked transparency.

For example, the cost to employees is determined by the insurance company rate increase less the employer share contribution. UC did not provide information about either the rate increase or the employer contribution, so there is no way to tell if UC is paying its share of the increased cost. But other sources indicate that Kaiser’s rate increase was probably about 15% this year[1], which would mean that UC reduced its share of contributions by about 20%.

We object to these unreasonable increases in our health benefit costs and UC’s secrecy and nontransparency in devising and announcing these policies. Your approach serves not only to degrade and disrespect UC’s academic employees but also contributes to the ongoing severe erosion of UC’s teaching and research mission. You will be hearing more from us, the people in the UC community who are now learning how their lives and livelihoods will be devastated by the poorly warranted policy changes to our healthcare that UCOP has sprung on them.

cc: The UC Regents

On March 19, 2023, CUCFA endorsed the following letter, which will be sent to President Drake, UC Chancellors, and Board of Regents calling for the inclusion of caste within the University of California’s anti-discrimination policy. To join this call, sign here by April 10, 2023:

Dear President Drake, UC Chancellors, and Board of Regents,

We, University of California faculty, staff, and students, are writing to request the inclusion of caste within the University of California’s anti-discrimination policy to further solidify the UC’s commitment to diversity and equity and ensure appropriate protections for caste oppressed students, staff, faculty, and community members. With the current UC-wide anti-discrimination policy undergoing revision, it is important that the updated policy explicitly includes caste to better address the ongoing caste discrimination across the University of California.

Caste is a structure of oppression that affects over 1 billion people across the world. As one of the oldest systems of oppression in the world, the caste system is a structure of graded inequality based on notions of purity and pollution. Caste is determined at birth and affects all aspects of life, including your right to human dignity, where you can worship, where you can live, who you can marry, and your prospects for educational and career advancement. To this day, caste-oppressed peoples continue to experience profound injustices including socioeconomic inequalities, usurpation of their land, rights, and brutal violence at the hands of the dominating castes.

Caste is prevalent across various faith communities across South Asia, and also transgresses regional and national boundaries to be found globally across communities part of the diaspora. Similar forms of caste systems also exist in various non-South Asian communities, with some examples being the caste system in Japan that marks the Burakumin caste as untouchable by birth, and the casta system across Latin America.

In the US, caste impacts over 5.5 million South Asians and has infiltrated a broad range of spaces and industries from education spaces to the tech sector to religious centers. According to the 2016 survey “Caste in the United States” produced by Equality Labs, 25% of Dalits reported facing verbal or physical assault based on their caste in the US, one in three Dalit students report being discriminated against during their education in the US, two out of three Dalits surveyed reported being treated unfairly at their workplace in the US, 60% of Dalits report experiencing caste-based derogatory jokes or comments in the US, and 20% of Dalit respondents report feeling discriminated at a place of business because of their caste.

Universities in the US are no exception. Caste-oppressed students and faculty are subjected to discrimination, bullying, and humiliation. According to the preliminary findings of the 2022 Caste in Higher Education Survey administered by the National Academic Coalition for Caste Equity (NACCE) and Equality Labs, 4 in 5 caste-oppressed students, staff, and faculty reported experiencing caste-discrimination at the hands of their dominant caste peers. Further, 75% of them did not report caste-based discrimination in their universities or colleges because caste was not added as a protected category and/or their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion departments lacked caste competency due to a lack of provisions and training. Given the prevalence of caste discrimination, leading universities and colleges across the US have amended their anti-discrimination policy to add caste as a protected category, including Colby College, Brown University, Brandeis University, and, most notably, the California State University system in 2022. Recently, Seattle also amended its anti-discrimination policy and became the first city in the nation to ban caste discrimination.

The call to ban caste discrimination has also been ongoing in the University of California system, with UC Davis becoming the first UC campus to add caste to its anti-discrimination policy, and UC Berkeley’s ASUC Senate unanimously passing SR 21/22-029 urging administration to amend the anti-discrimination policy to include caste in order to create equitable learning opportunities for all students.

We call on the University of California to also recognize caste within its anti-discrimination policy and commit to protecting caste oppressed peoples against discrimination on the basis of caste. Caste-based discrimination is an urgent civil and human rights issue that requires immediate action and we request you to recognize the humanity and the reality of caste oppressed faculty, staff, and students. Given UC’s commitment to ensuring a safe and equal working and learning environment for all, adding caste as a protected category will affirm the university’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and support for those most marginalized.

To support adding caste as a protected category, please sign your name and affiliation below by April 10, 2023.

The Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA), in collaboration with University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT), which represents over 6,000 UC Unit 18 faculty and librarians, is collecting faculty and lecturer signatures on a letter we intend to send to President Drake and UC Regents later this month. The letter is pasted below, and if you are interested in adding your name to it, click here.

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Dear President Drake and UC Regents,

We, the undersigned members of the UC community, stand firmly against any move on the part of the UC Office of the President (UCOP) to impose the costs of UAW-ratified contracts on the already strained finances of departments, research centers, libraries and faculty. The result would be a diminished quality of research and education for undergraduates and graduates. We urge campus administrators, UCOP, the California legislature, Governor Newsom, and federal granting agencies to recommit to fully funding public higher education.

On December 23rd, 2022, UAW members across the UC system ratified contracts with much-needed and significantly increased pay and benefits, including childcare subsidies, increased access to healthcare, family leave, and transit benefits. These overdue contracts improve the lives of UAW members—our students and postdocs—who have long endured inadequate pay and benefits. Despite numerous warnings by public education advocates, the UC system has enjoyed these lowered labor costs for decades. It is only now facing the question of how to pay for these much-needed improvements.

The University is seeking to impose these costs on departments, research centers, and faculty PIs, leading to a reduction of graduate student appointments, an increase in the already high number of undergraduates per discussion section, and a correspondingly negative impact on course curriculum, undergraduate assignments, and grading. This reduction also weakens currently funded research and allows fewer future funded research opportunities for graduate students. TA and GSR appointments are central components of funding for graduate students, and both are major inputs into the research and educational work of the institution. Given these anticipated effects, the costs of the new contracts negotiated by UCOP cannot be borne by departments, research centers, and faculty PIs. Indeed, by pushing the costs downwards in this way, the university is both effectively canceling the gains of this historic strike and negatively impacting the research and education mission of the UC.

We refuse this divide-and-conquer tactic and stand alongside our undergraduate and graduate students, department chairs, and deans in insisting on a funding model that advances the UC system’s fundamental mission of education and research. We refuse the imposition of unilateral, punitive austerity as the university’s response to a strike by academic workers against poverty wages.

We know the UC system has funds at its disposal and can work to raise additional public funds at both the state and federal levels to cover the costs of the new UAW contracts. UC leadership must not only reallocate administrative budgets but also robustly appeal to state legislators and federal grant agencies for larger budget appropriations. We expect to see a budget and planning process that allocates funds to the central missions of teaching and research and underwrites the short-term and long-term costs of the improved contract. The strike, the largest academic labor action in US history and the largest across any industry in the US last year, has highlighted the urgent need to reprioritize educational goals above financial goals.

We intend to take our concerns to the Academic Senate, the UC Regents, the California Governor and legislature, and the media. We do so to advocate for public education and to stand with our undergraduate and graduate students and junior colleagues as we all work hard to carry out that mission.

Following today’s campus directive requiring the submission of self-attestation forms by those faculty who participated in strike-related activities last quarter, we write to offer further clarification and guidance from the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) on how best to respond.

Below we append CUCFA’s advice on faculty-protected rights in relation to UC’s issuing of these attestation forms, along with a cease-and-desist letter sent to UC Labor Relations. Links to each of these are below.

https://cucfa.org/2023/01/ucops-attestation-form-for-faculty/
https://cucfa.org/2023/01/uc-interference-with-faculty-protected-rights/

Please read CUCFA’s arguments as to why “UC’s attempt to survey faculty about whether or not they honored the picket line is unlawful, and you are not required to submit these forms.”

In light of the resolution of the recent historic strike by academic workers, we write to share with you the following update regarding grading that remains to be completed for the fall 2022 quarter.

The Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA), in collaboration with UC-AFT, UAW 2865, and the UC Santa Cruz Faculty Association (the only legal bargaining unit representing Senate Faculty in the UC system), sent the following letter to Letitia Silas, Executive Director of Labor Relations at the UC Office of the President (UCOP), regarding the need for centrally funded compensation for readers and/or lecturers to complete Fall grading. The letter reminds UCOP that Senate faculty members and lecturers have no obligation to volunteer to pick up struck labor required to complete Fall 2022 grade submission, and calls on UC to provide funds to hire readers to complete that work. The full text of the letter is pasted below, and shared online at:

https://cucfa.org/2023/01/uaw-ucaft-cucfa-scfa-return-to-work-grading/

Sincerely,
The Board of the RFA

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January 4, 2023

Letitia Silas
Executive Director, Labor Relations
UC Office of the President
1111 Franklin Street
Oakland, CA 94607

CC: President Michael V. Drake

Delivered via Email to: Letitia.Silas@ucop.edu

Dear Labor Relations Executive Director Silas,

We write collectively as representatives of UAW 2865, UC-AFT, CUCFA, and SCFA. Due to the UAW’s strike over UC’s unfair labor practices during contract negotiations, a significant amount of the labor required to complete Fall 2022 grade submission remains outstanding.
The workers represented by our unions and associations understand their rights and protections. Senate faculty members and lecturers have no obligation to volunteer to pick up labor struck by ASEs employed in their classes. Readers and teaching assistants in UAW 2865 enjoyed legal protections during their strike, and their appointments for the Fall Quarter terminated on December 31 at the latest while the strike was active.
Should the University require additional labor for submitting any Fall 2022 grades, it can hire readers (including those who previously served as TAs for the class) under the terms of the new contract and/or hire lecturers at a rate set by negotiation between UC-AFT and the university administration. Further, given that departments were not responsible for the strike’s duration and/or resolution, we also expect this labor to be centrally funded. Finally, we ask that the administration communicate a process for accessing these funds as soon as possible so that course sponsoring agencies can hire replacement workers and instructors are not pressured to take on labor beyond their customary duties.
We are willing to meet to discuss this matter further.

Yours,
Rafael Jaime, UAW 2865 President
Katie Rodger, UC-AFT President
Constance Penley, CUCFA President
Jessica Taft, SCFA Co-Chair

The Council of UC Faculty Associations
A Coordinating and Service Agency for the Faculty Associations of the University of California

Dear Colleagues,

On November 14, tens of thousands of academic workers represented by UAW 2865 (the Union of Academic Student Employees at UC), UAW 5810 (Postdocs and Academic Researchers), and SRU-UAW (Student Researchers) will begin striking to resolve Unfair Labor Practices (ULPs). 98% of 36,558 union members cast YES votes authorizing the UAW to call a multi-unit strike. UAW has bargained for months with the UC to secure better pay, benefits, and working conditions. A timeline and their demands can be found at fairucnow.org.

CUCFA supports our fellow academic workers and calls on the UC to bargain in good faith. The disruption to the university’s core mission – teaching and research – will end through the administration’s efforts to settle the strike. Faculty are not responsible for its resolution, nor should we be expected to mitigate all its effects.

These FAQs respond to questions that Senate faculty may have regarding their rights and responsibilities during the UAW strike, including but not limited to how they can respect the picket line. The UAW requests that faculty honor the picket line, but there are also other ways to show support, which can be found in the FAQ.

One easy way to show support is to add your name [here] to the 600+ faculty members who have already signed on to CUCFA’s solidarity statement.

In solidarity,
Constance Penley
President, Council of UC Faculty Associations

• Disseminated CUCFA’s solidarity pledge with striking UC-AFT lecturers, and supported town Hall for UC-AFT (Sept 2021)
• Supported UC-AFT picket, disseminated statement of solidarity, encouraged faculty to have AFT reps speak in class  (Oct 2021)
• Met with new Provost Watkins to discuss our vocal opposition to merger of UCPD with health/wellness systems on campus  (Sept 2021)
• Held elections (October 2021)
• Supported UC-AFT collective bargaining via statements of solidarity and pledges to support picket line (Nov 2021)
• Held all-member general meeting (Feb 2022)
• Encouraged faculty participation in UC Academic Senate Survey of Faculty Life, designed to bring more awareness to the UC Regents of faculty experiences and concerns during the pandemic (May 2022)
• Collaborated with Senate Planning and Budget committee to review UCR’s budget model, and encouraged faculty to advocate for budget transparency and accountability (May 2022)
• Provided information for faculty to advocate for state legislative support to reinstate funds in Newsom’s budget designed to address inequities at UCR and UC Merced (May 2022)