Lecturers negotiating for more secure contract

By Noah Grand
Daily Bruin Reporter

University of California lecturers represented by University
Council-American Federation of Teachers say they are faced with
little job security and high teaching workloads.

The union has been negotiating a collective bargaining agreement
with the UC since April 2000, before their contract expired on June
30, 2000.

The previous agreement is being followed until a new agreement
is reached.

UC employs 2,400 lecturers, and more than 500 of those work at
UCLA. The union represents all lecturers, even though not all of
its constituents are members.

“We’re trying to establish a career path for the
people who do all of this teaching, something that’s not
part-time employment,” said Susan Griffin, a lecturer in the
writing department.

Because lecturers are contracted, many are considered temporary
employees who teach until replacement tenure track faculty can be
found.

“There’s a group of lecturers who are just here
temporarily because they fill a temporary need of the
university,” said Darren Lee, UC assistant director of labor
relations. “They teach a course while we search for a
(Senate) rank faculty member, or when a professor is on
sabbatical.”

Jeremy Elkins, president of the University Council, said the
conception that lecturers do not make a major contribution to UC is
one of the biggest problems that the union faces.

“To be here for 16 years, to be part of the group that
teaches so much of undergraduate educations, to do work that that
the university basically doesn’t acknowledge, I guess the
longer you’re here, the more ridiculous that seems,”
Griffin said.

Elkins said that UC will need to hire thousands of new faculty
““ mainly non-tenure track faculty ““ because of Tidal
Wave II, the expected increase of over 60,000 new students in the
UC system over the next 10 years.

Aurita Ploesch, a UCLA labor relations specialist, agreed with
this assessment.

“We need all the lecturers we can find in order to
accommodate the needs of the students,” she said.

Elkins said this greater demand does not guarantee job security
for lecturers.

“What we’re really looking at is the prospect of a
system where over half of the courses are taught by non-senate
faculty,” Elkins said. “But most of them have less than
three years of experience teaching.”

The two sides are currently in mediation with Dave Gild of State
Mediation and Conciliation Services. Both sides have agreed not to
discuss the process.

Lecturers are hired for one to three year contracts, according
to Lee. But Elkins said these contracts are usually given for only
one year and no longer.

Once a contract expires, the university reviews the
lecturer’s performance and decides whether to renew the
contract.

“There’s always a feeling of apprehension whenever I
come up for renewal,” said Silvia Sherno, a lecturer in the
Spanish department since 1983. “I can’t say that I ever
feel totally secure about it.”

Lecturers are guaranteed three year contracts after being
employed for six years.

Elkins said many lecturers would not make the six-year mark
because the UC could hire an inexperienced lecturer at a lower
salary and save money.

Lee said there are no UC policies that encourage campuses or
departments to dispose of lecturers before they reach the six-year
plateau. Lee said he told deans, departments and academic personnel
to ensure that these policies do not exist. There is no oversight
policy in writing.

The UC recognizes that some lecturers are long-time workers, Lee
said. He added that for the past four or five years, there have
been approximately 650 long-time lecturers employed by the UC.

In addition to performance reviews, a lecturer’s contract
can be discontinued if there is no longer a need for that lecturer
to teach classes, said Lee.

“Many of our problems have arisen because we’re
contract employees,” Griffin said. “I have no guarantee
that I’ll manage to be here until retirement.”

Both sides are proposing that lecturers be exempted from reviews
after six years of experience, resulting in a continual
appointment.

Despite the mutual feelings, Lee said there are no guarantees
that lecturers protected under this proposal would be able to teach
the same courses every quarter.

“Not even a tenure-track faculty member has an entitlement
to teach a specific course,” Lee said.

Lecturers often teach at least six courses per year, and under
their collective bargaining agreement can be asked to teach up to
nine classes per year.

The union wants to reduce the maximum workload requirement of
nine course per year so lecturers can spend more time on individual
class.

Sherno, who teaches three Spanish composition classes this
quarter, said that this high course load can reduce the quality of
her teaching.

“I guess I have enough time to do my job, it’s a
question of to what degree I can do my job,” Sherno said.
“The particular classes I’m teaching are rather labor
intensive. I would probably do a better job of teaching two
classes.”

Sherno’s class schedule has changed this quarter from
teaching two classes that each met twice a week to teaching three
classes that meet three times a week, although now the classes are
only one hour long instead of two. Sherno said her salary does not
correlate to the amount of work she is currently doing.

“My workload has been increased 50 percent with no
increase in pay,” Sherno said. “I just think it was
done arbitrarily.”

Lee said the issue of reducing lecturers’ workload was
first mentioned after negotiations had already been under way for
10 months, and filed an unfair labor practice charge against UC-AFT
with the Public Employment Relations Board for bad-faith
bargaining.

“We’re challenging the way in which the union
engaged in bargaining,” Lee said.

During this year’s negotiations, lecturers have not
received any pay raises. Lee said that UC offered lecturers between
a 2 and 4 percent raise based on their current wage, but that the
union did not want to accept it until negotiations were
finished.

Union members said UC would only approve the raise if all
negotiation issues were resolved.

“We proposed this raise last October but we didn’t
have an agreement so we weren’t able to give this to
employees,” Lee said.

Elkins said a pay raise was offered only because the California
State Legislature told UC to make the offer to all union workers it
employs.

LECTURERS’ UNION DEMANDS * Continuing
appointments for lecturers who have worked for UC for at least 6
years.

* Reducing the maximum number of courses that a lecturer can
teach in a year so they can spend more time on each class.

* Get pay raise and institute a pay scale based on training and
experience, similar to how tenure track faculty, librarians and
high school teachers are paid.

* Increased funding for lecturers going to conferences and
conducting research.

* Have the entire contract subject to mutual arbitration by a
neutral party.

SOURCE: Jeremy Elkins – president, University Council Original
graphic by MAGGIE WOO/Daily Bruin Web adaptation by JENNIFER
JAVIER