UC-AFT Local 1474 UCB/UCSF

The 2010 election for the UC-AFT Local 1474 Board concluded May 6.   61 members cast ballots.  Thanks to all who participated.  See the results below.

President, Kathryn Klar, Lecturer, 54 votes

Vice-President, Karen MacLeod, Academic Specialist, 56 votes

Secretary, Virginia Abascal, Lecturer, 55 votes

Board Member-at-Large positions:

Elected:

Maria Josephine (Joi) Barrios-Leblanc, Lecturer, 39 votes

Harrison Dekker, Librarian, 52 votes

Kaya Oakes, Lecturer, 34 votes

Diane Pearson, Lecturer, 42 votes

Not elected:

Keiko Yamanaka, Lecturer, 32 votes

Voter comments:

1. A big thank you to everyone that volunteers their time and energy to these efforts!

2. Need to keep librarian issues visible.  Jason Schulz is a great organizer--need to support his efforts as we ramp up to bargaining time.

See the candidates' statements below.  For election results, see the following article.

Candidate for President

Kathryn Klar, Lecturer, Celtic Studies, UCB, kkestrel@berkeley.edu (incumbent)

Things are all fouled up in California, and even worse at UC.  But if you reelect me, I’ll keep working with all of you to protect our jobs, our benefits, and our working conditions as best we can.

Candidate for Vice-President

Karen MacLeod, Academic Specialist, UCSF, kmac@phy.ucsf.edu (incumbent)

Sacrificing the Student Body

April 2009

(Note: This article was submitted to the SF Chronicle  last year, and an earlier version was published as an op ed in the Daily Cal last spring.)

A March 19 article on the previous week’s UC Regents’ meeting (“A major revision in tuition for UC is dropped”) reported that 45% of UC students said they suffer from stress and 17 percent said depression has frequently or always interfered with their academic success.  In the past year alone, 1 in 10 of our UC students seriously considered suicide; 1.4 percent attempted it. 

Responding to these statistics, Chancellor Birgeneau sent Berkeley faculty an email asking them to tell students about “Mind and Body Awareness Week,” a campaign to publicize the risks of stress and the resources available on campus to help students deal with the pressures they face at Berkeley. 

Librarians

• UC Berkeley Libraries lost nearly 50 employees in 2009 who will not be replaced.
• Librarians are taking home smaller paychecks this year than the last and work is piling up.
• According to Breslauer, "layoffs are on the table" for all staff (except faculty) when furloughs end this fall. 
• Last year, UC negotiators told librarians they are “not a priority,” asking librarians to sign a contract with no provision for salary increases. 
• UC Berkeley librarians continue to be underpaid by market standards and increasingly overworked.
• Some campus libraries, including the Water Resources Center Archives, are threatened with closure. 
• Collection budgets have been slashed.

Lecturers

This call to action issued by students and educators of the California Coordinating Committee (below) was endorsed by the Executive Board of UC-AFT Local 1474 on January 28.   Many unions, student groups and other groups and organizations across the state and the country are organizing to participate in March 4 actions to defend public education at all levels-K-12, community colleges, and universities. ms

National Call for March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education

California has recently seen a massive movement erupt in defense of public education -- but layoffs, fee hikes, cuts, and the re-segregation of public education are attacks taking place throughout the country. A nationwide resistance movement is needed.

We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations and communities across the country to massively mobilize for a Strike and Day of Action in Defense of Public Education on March 4, 2010. Education cuts are attacks against all of us, particularly in working-class communities and communities of color.

2009-2010 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FUND (PDF)
FOR UC BERKELEY/UC SAN FRANCISCO LECTURERS

Applications are now being requested for the 2009-2010 round of PDF grant funding.

The Professional Development Fund Pool is open to all Unit 18 non-Senate faculty (lecturers and other instructors covered by the Unit 18 contract) with teaching appointments on the UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco campuses in summer 2009, fall 2009 and/or spring 2010. Grants of from $500 to $8000 are available for teaching, research, and scholarship.

Please note the following dates in your calendar:

Thursday, February 11, 2010, 5:30-7:30 pm. You are invited to attend a reception for the 2008-2009 PDF grant winners in the Ethnic Studies Library in Stephens Hall at UC Berkeley. We encourage new applicants to come and talk to committee members and former grant winners about the program.

Thursday, Dec 10, 2 pm

Please come to the OPEN UNIVERSITY in RECLAIMED Wheeler Auditorium.

We are lucky to have two distinguished faculty speakers, two important voices in this movement for public education, will be providing some TEACH-IN style education and movement building:

 "The Quantum Theory of University Accounting--Uncertainty About What UC Officials are Doing with Your Money."  This is not exactly a Lecture but more of an Open Q&A in the Open University about the Financial Crisis. with Professor Charles Schwartz Professor Emeritus of Physics at Berkeley: http://UniversityProbe.org

 The Possibilities of Protest: Performative Cultures of South Africa's Anti-Apartheid Struggle, 1956-1964 with Professor Catherine M. Cole Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies

Fri., Dec. 11, 1-3p

Skillshare: Organizing and Campaign Strategy

Lessons from the Labor Movement

1. This commission clearly shows the failure of shared governance in its focus on many
   topics that fall under the purview of the faculty senates.  By participating, the system-wide Academic Council is failing to protect the interests and rights of faculty.
2. We protest the lack of union involvement in the working groups.
3. We protest the lack of representation of the humanities in the working groups.
4. It is still unclear what powers this commission holds and how they will make
   decisions.
5. We reject the proposal to move classes online. This issue falls under the sole
   purview of the Academic Senate.
6. We reject the further privatization of the University, including proposals to increase
   out-of-state students and decrease in-state students for the sole purpose of
   raising revenues and to impose differential fees for different campuses and
   different majors.
7. This unrepresentative “UC Commission” and its so-called “Listening Forums” are fake
   forms of consultation and shared governance.