Bargaining Update from 3/30
Once again, UC’s team made us wait 45 minutes after our bargaining session was scheduled to begin. This is routinely a waste of our time that we could be using to conduct our research. They passed a meaningless proposal on Parking and Transit, failing to address the issue we have raised: helping address climate change by improving Postdoc benefits for public transit and other environmentally-friendly forms of transportation to work. You can find these proposals amongst all others on this tracker.
Relocation reimbursement
We passed a very straightforward counterproposal on relocation reimbursement, namely a lump-sum of $5000 plus the cost of taxes. This is a practice that is already in place at LBL and it works well, so it should be extended to Postdocs across UC and guaranteed by our contract.
Disability accommodation
We presented a case for improving disability access by enacting proactive measures to improve accessibility. Today, we focused the discussion around digital accessibility, such as ensuring that all electronic workspaces and communications are fully accessible. We were hoping UC’s bargaining team would engage in a discussion with us to help form our counter proposal on the Reasonable Accommodation article, but UC did not have anything to say on improving accessibility.
April 1: Toast to your chancellor’s raise!
Are you outraged that UC hasn’t agreed to meaningful raises for Postdocs in bargaining over the past year? No worries, because the chancellors are getting their (un)fair share of cake with raises that bring chancellor salaries up to $819,545 annually…not to mention perks like rent-free on-campus and beachfront mansions. Join graduate workers and Academic Researchers at your campus’ action tomorrow, Friday, April 1 to share a toast to our esteemed leaders and plot how academic employees can win our fair share of the cake!.
In solidarity,
Postdoc Bargaining Team and Alternates
Anne Klotz, UC Berkeley
Gilbert Bernstein, UC Berkeley
Chris Hart, UC Davis
Adam Davis, UC Davis
Zack Urbach, UC Irvine
Bryan Neumann, UC Irvine
Tim Kodalle, LBL
Jesse Livezey, LBL
James Boocock, UC Los Angeles
SJ Spencer, UC Los Angeles
Brad Barker, UC Merced
Ingrid Padilla Espinosa, UC Merced
Tyler Bell, UC San Diego
Adam Caparco, UC San Diego
Jade Moore, UC San Francisco
Anne Sapiro, UC San Francisco
Evan Plunkett, UC Santa Barbara
Tejas Navaratna, UC Santa Barbara
Jordan Eizenga, UC Santa Cruz