On March 2nd, Academic Student Employees (ASEs) sat down with UCOP in the first episode of our contract fight to end rent burden and win a fairer, better university.
Four of our union’s bargaining team members delivered slides showing the appalling conditions and outcomes facing workers in the UC, and set out our bargaining priorities:
- Wage and housing demands to end rent burden
- Demands to achieve a genuinely accessible workplace, including ending NRST, expanding childcare, and ending bullying and harassment at work
- Real job security
- Securing strong union rights, including around our right to strike
After this, UCOP requested a “brief” caucus, that stretched out to one hour. Deliberate time wasting? You make the call. When they made it back, they spent our time telling us how to format our proposals.
UCOP also tried to emphasize that bargaining is a “closed” process. We disagree. We, as a union, are fully committed to open bargaining. This means that all workers should be aware of what is happening at the bargaining table, and no worker should be barred from attending a bargaining session with the University.
Members in attendance pushed back against UCOP’s proposal to close and restrict bargaining by disabling Zoom chats, eliminating closed captioning, and forbidding social media coverage. Ultimately, UCOP agreed not only to our ground rules proposal for open bargaining, but also to an initial, lower-priority contract proposal that would include the Juneteenth Federal Holiday in our next contract.
It was a quiet opening day: the calm before the storm.
RSVP for the next session on March 16. For more details from yesterday’s meeting, reach out to your campus’s organizers and Bargaining Team representatives.