UC-AFT: WHO WE ARE
UC-AFT is affiliated with the California Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers. Since 1983, we have negotiated and administered statewide collective bargaining contracts, or Memorandum of Understanding, that cover Librarians (Unit 17) and Non-Senate Faculty (Unit 18). These agreements establish the basic terms of the individual contracts that you receive and the rights and responsibilities that govern employment at UC.
WHAT WE DO
Our primary work is negotiating improved conditions for non-senate
faculty and librarians and representing academic employees when they have
problems related to their employment at UC. We are also active in publicizing issues of concern to faculty and
librarians and in representing those concerns to the Legislature.
Before UC-AFT negotiated its first contracts with UC, working
conditions and salaries for non-Senate faculty and librarians were
completely arbitrary, subject only to the whim of the university
administration. For example, after 8 years of teaching at any UC
campus, lecturers were automatically terminated, no matter how superb
their performance or how badly their skills were needed. UC-AFT put an
end to this system, winning for lecturers with a record of 6 years of
excellent teaching the right to more stable employment: initially (in
the 1986 MOU) to 3-year contracts with an expectation of renewal, and
more recently (in the 2003 MOU) to continuing, career appointments.
The new MOU for Unit 18 lecturers also provides some new--limited but
important--protections for lecturers before their sixth year. Moreover,
since the new Unit 18 MOU provides for third-party arbitration for the
most important provisions, it is far more enforceable than previous
agreements. We have also won significant gains for lecturers and
librarians in the areas of salary, benefits, professional development
support, academic freedom, and due process rights.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
The work of non-Senate faculty and librarians is at the core of both the teaching and research missions of UC. We believe fulfilling these missions requires professional working conditions. In future negotiations, your bargaining representatives will continue to advocate for higher salaries, including parity with Senate faculty, better benefits, improved job security, regular merit reviews/increases, career equity, realistic workloads, and increased professional recognition and support. Thanks to the increased funding provided by the California “Fair Share” law in the last few years, we now have union staff on all the campuses. Their job is to assist local leaders in building the local organization, and to help protect the people we represent.
