How the Budget Cuts Affect Librarians and Lecturers

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

• Lecturers face layoffs, non-reappointments, and the impending loss of classes and entire programs.
• Lecturers teach nearly 50% of all classes but their salaries continue to be tied to Temporary Academic Staffing budgets.
• Layoff notices have been sent to lecturers in UCB’s College of Engineering Technical Communication (program to be eliminated) Program, Comparative Literature, French, Celtic Studies, Physical Education (program has been slashed by 50%), and the Science Education Credential program.
• Blanket layoff notices were issued to lecturers in the College of Letters and Science at UCLA (67) and UCI (37).
• Countless pre-six lecturers (lecturers who have taught fewer than 12 semesters and have little job security) have not been reappointed.
• Language programs, which are primarily taught by lecturers, are starting to disappear on all UC campuses. 

Librarians & Lecturers:  Why we are fighting for public education

We are educators committed to fighting for all sectors of public education. Because the work we do serves the students, we believe that everyone should have access to an affordable education and the opportunities it offers. 

Severe cuts to public education, particularly in the K-12, CSU, community college, and adult education systems, compromise the quality of education and continue to exclude and disenfranchise the most underrepresented and marginalized people in society. We see the rapid deterioration of public education whenever a library closes, whenever teachers and workers are forced to serve under increasingly strained working conditions, whenever classes and support services are eliminated, and whenever elementary, middle, and high schools are closed to make way for charter schools.

Public education is no longer an equally attainable reality for all.  There are sharp differences in the quality of education, resources, and funding available to schools across different geographic regions.  Rising tuition and restricted enrollment make higher education less accessible to low-income and middle-class students, students of color, student parents, undocumented students, and to the very children of those who work in public education.

We need to put our specific struggles at UCB in the context of the fights happening in other sectors of public education, to recognize how these struggles overlap and intersect, and most importantly, to fight as one for the future of public education.

UC-AFT LOCAL 1474