Editorial: UC Must Change Policies Toward Unions

On Oct. 3, thousands of academic student employees throughout the UC system, members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2865, engaged in a one-day unfair labor practice strike to protest the university's continuing pattern of unproductive, uncooperative, and unlawful behavior in contract negotiations. UAW Local 2865 has filed 64 unfair labor practice charges against the university, detailing example after example of the university's efforts to stall negotiations and prevent the parties from reaching settlement by not meeting its legal obligation to bargain in good faith. Sadly, these protests are echoed by the experience of the entire labor movement at the university.

For decades, the University of California has been known as the most anti-union public employer west of the Rockies. It fought the unionization of the academic Student Employees Union for over 15 years. When recognized unions do come to the bargaining table ready to negotiate contracts, the university bargaining team responds time and time again with unfair labor practices such as stalling, refusing to provide the union with information necessary for bargaining, making regressive proposals, and sending people to the bargaining table without authority to negotiate. Away from the bargaining table, the university has repeatedly tried to undermine the strength of the unions by trying to implement unilateral changes in employees' working conditions and otherwise attempting to bypass the union.

Three years ago, however, then-UC President Richard Atkinson made a promise to the California Legislature and to the university community that, from that day forth, there would be a "new day" of productive and cooperative labor relations at the University of California. The period since Atkinson made this promise, unfortunately, has been marred by increasing labor unrest. In the last three years, there have been four unfair labor practice strikes and two threatened unfair labor practice strikes at the university, involving a total of four unions. They collectively represent 40,000 workers, or 60 percent of the unionized workforce at UC. These strikes, undertaken to protest the university's unlawful behavior, were very disruptive to the campuses and to students' education.

In addition to these four strikes, related sympathy strikes and support actions undertaken by a total of six unions have added to the disruption. These unions collectively represent over 60,000 workers, or 90 percent of the unionized workforce at UC.

In recent months, the university's response to this labor unrest has not been to improve its labor relations practices, but rather to try to limit the right of unions and their members to protest UC's bad labor practices. At the beginning of 2003, five unions, collectively representing over 50,000 workers, or 75 percent of the unionized workforce at UC, had virtually identical contract language that did not prohibit the right to honor other unions' picket lines. In May 2003, however, UC succeeded in forcing the lecturers represented by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to agree to contract language surrendering the right to engage in sympathy strikes. Then, in September 2003, UC forced the AFT-represented librarians to similarly surrender their right to honor other unions' picket lines. Notably, the lecturers and librarians were the two smallest bargaining units with contract language that did not prohibit sympathy strikes.

The next step in UC's campaign to remedy its labor relations problems is their recent attempt to condition settlement of the UAW contracts on the UAW changing its contract language to explicitly surrender the right to engage in sympathy strikes. What UC didn't anticipate, however, was that the UAW and the other unions at UC would stand firm in defense of cross-union solidarity.

As a strategy to maintain labor peace, demanding that unions and their members surrender the right to protest unlawful treatment of other unions and workers does not work. Fundamentally, the idea that one can achieve peace through the suppression of rights is fool's gold. Any respite from unrest gained through such tactics is doomed to be temporary, since it does not address the root cause of the unrest. With such an approach, the university clearly cannot maintain labor peace, and even contributes to the likelihood of the recurrence of disturbance. This strategy is simply bad public policy and bad labor relations.

UC must cease going down its present path. It needs to truly improve its labor relations and desist from committing unfair labor practices. It also needs to leave the current "no strikes/no lockout" language in the union agreements that still have this clause as well as meet with the UAW to settle the contracts immediately. To do otherwise risks further unrest.

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