Aram Ghoogasian: UC must increase transparency by fully disclosing finances to workers
Doctors protested alleged unfair labor practices against the University of California last week, claiming that they were receiving inadequate pay for higher case and patient loads. (Monica Jeon/Daily Bruin)
By Aram Ghoogasian
Feb. 3, 2015 12:00 a.m.
The University of California isn’t very good at making friends.
Over the course of a little more than a year, the UC has managed to antagonize both its teaching assistants and its service workers. Now it’s the doctors’ turn.
Last week, doctors staged a strike across the UC in protest of the University’s unfair labor practices, including the withholding of information regarding funding for health care centers. Doctors in the UC system charge that the University has refused to divulge where funds from the chancellors’ discretionary fund have gone, and why that money wasn’t used to improve the care at student health care centers or provide other improvements the doctors are looking for.
When it comes to collective bargaining, the UC needs to increase its transparency by allowing full disclosure of any and all financial information that could affect its workers. Withholding information that is crucial for fair negotiations puts unnecessary strain on UC employees and makes it difficult to level the playing field between employee and employer.
The doctors’ strike comes after many teaching assistants went on strike last April and nearly did so again during finals week of that same quarter. UC service workers also went on strike in Oct. 2013 and only reached a new contract after more than a year of disagreement. In the teaching assistants’ case, the UC even allegedly sent intimidating emails to discourage workers from exercising their lawful right to go on strike.
As of now, the UC still hasn’t budged on the doctors’ negotiations. It has gone on record saying it doesn’t think the strike was warranted and that the strike was “simply a negotiating tool.” But the doctors have nowhere else to turn.
UCLA doctors, as employees of the UC, are correct to believe that they have a right to know how funds and student registration fees are spent, especially when these are the same funds that pay their salaries. The UC’s refusal to grant them this right is irresponsible.
Sam Weeks, a graduate student in anthropology and head steward of the UCLA branch of United Auto Workers, Local 2865, the union that represents UC teaching assistants, said that in the doctors’ case, the administration would not release information about where the money from the large number of patients was going, even though the UC is required to discuss issues pertaining to working conditions with its employees. Doctors at UC San Diego have said that the high number of students they see doesn’t allow them to take the time to adequately care for each student. They also argue that the withholding of information by the UC makes it difficult to negotiate overcrowding issues because they aren’t clear on the costs behind the congestion.
The teaching assistants also serve too many students at once. Weeks compared the doctors’ situation with that of the teaching assistants, saying that in the past 10 years, discussion section sizes in the anthropology department have doubled without a relative increase in wages or a willingness to negotiate class sizes. He added that teaching assistants teach more students and doctors see more patients per day, but he thinks a proportional wage increase is yet to be seen.
The UC doesn’t want strikes; it wants to resolve issues through negotiations. However, it is the UC that ensures potentially constructive negotiations get nowhere when it tightens its stranglehold on documentation that could explain why doctors and student health centers have not received more money even while it is increasing the number of people they serve.
These aren’t unfixable problems, but a lack of cooperation between workers and the UC makes it seem like they are.
The UC can talk about denouncing strikes as much as it wants, but unless it’s willing to work through the workers’ grievances bilaterally, the strikes will continue.
When the UC shows it doesn’t care about its workers, it exhibits a lack of empathy for its more than 240,000 students. Its inability to compromise in the face of demands from its workers for something as simple as financial records requests hurts not only the workers themselves, but the students many of them serve. The UC needs to do less flexing and more listening.
Email Ghoogasian at [email protected] or tweet him @aghoogasian. Send general comments to [email protected] or tweet us @DBOpinion.
