UC-AFT Local 1474 UCB/UCSF

The following is a series of questions and answers to help clarify the status of the UC budget.

Possible Salary Reductions

Q: Is it true that we are going to have our salaries reduced?
A: It is very possible that the UC may decide to cut all salaries 5% or use a furlough system to accomplish the same thing. However, in the case of lecturers and librarians, the university has to negotiate any salary reduction.

Q.: If the UC is broke, why would the union resist a 5% salary reduction?

Dear UC-AFT-represented Librarians and Non-Senate Faculty:

As you very likely know, the University is the process of soliciting comments in regard to draft furlough/salary reduction guidelines. These draft guidelines propose to give the President the authority to declare a financial emergency and, in such circumstances, to seek the implementation of furlough and/or salary reduction plans.

As you can imagine this is not an easy time to be in office. The state we love is in crisis: revenues keep dropping, our deficit is now at $24 billion, unemployment is double digits, good democrats like our Controller John Chiang predict bankruptcy if we don't close the budget gap by June 30 and the Governor says cuts alone is the only the answer.

I'm writing to update you on my thoughts, let you know what I am doing, and how you might help.

Reality Check

Here is the list of the officers elected to serve on the board of UC-AFT Local 1474 during the 2009-10
academic year. (Their statements are still posted below.)

Local President: Kathryn Klar, Lecturer, Celtic Studies, UCB
Local Vice-President: Karen MacLeod, Academic Specialist, Physiology, UCSF

Board Members-at-Large:

Virginia Abascal, Lecturer, Berkeley Law, UCB
Diane Pearson, Lecturer, Ethnic Studies, UCB
Shary Rosenbaum, Lecturer, Graduate School of Education, UCB

National New Majority Faculty Day flyer
Non-Senate Academics at UC
Librarians

New Majority Faculty Day- April 30, 2009

Lecturer's explanation to students: Making the Connection Between Budget Deficits, Lecturers, and Student Access to Courses

1) UC salaries lag the market. Salaries for UC librarians are significantly below market salaries for professional librarians in California. Currently UC librarians make thousands of dollars a year less than CSU (California State University) librarians for comparable positions. (See Academic Librarian Salary Comparison graph posted on this website.)

• At every level, UC librarians are 15% behind their counterparts at CSUs.

For years, UC librarians' pay has lagged well behind that of librarians in the CSU and Community College systems. (See the graph posted previously.) In this round of bargaining over salaries and professional development funding, UC management has offered librarians nothing. Management's bargaining team's explanation is that "Librarians are not a priority at this time." Recently, UC librarians on the campuses have been circulating a petition to support equitable compensation. Now that same petition is available online at

Data collected in June 2008 clearly shows the salary disparity between librarians working in comparable positions in the UC and CSU systems.