Workers say the numbers point to understaffing, as they often must work overtime and through breaks to care for patients and complete other essential tasks.

UCSF nurse Erin Carrera, a representative for the California Nurses Association, said that most instances of overtime occur when there are not enough staff members, nurses have not finished their patient-care work or a replacement has not arrived to relieve them.

“We’re nurses,” Carrera said. “We’re not going to walk away from our patients because we don’t have a release.”

Out of nearly 15,000 nurses employed by the UC system in 2012, nearly 13,000 earned some amount of overtime, according to a UC payroll report published July 31. The payroll report also shows that 235 of the 270 ultrasound technologists and 485 of the 547 radiology technologists employed by the system earn overtime. These ratios have remained somewhat consistent since 2010 and 2011.

UC spokesperson Dianne Klein said that overtime is a necessary part of providing adequate health care services and that staff members are well-compensated for overtime work.

Nurses working overtime are typically compensated at a rate of 1.5 times their regular salary, according to the nurses’ contract. The contract also stipulates that overtime cannot be mandatory except during university-declared emergencies.

“Effective medical care means that staff must be flexible and willing to work overtime in the event of emergencies,” Klein said in an email. “I believe you’ll find that the majority of our medical center employees – dedicated professionals – enjoy their jobs and consider UC a great place to work.”

Overtime work is voluntary for many workers, but UC San Diego MRI technologist Richard Smith said that the UC system can say it is voluntary because they know someone will do the work. Smith said that he and his co-workers each work seven to 25 hours of overtime every week in order to fulfill patient-care needs.

“Someone has to step up and say ‘I’ll do the overtime’ and take care of the patients,” Smith said.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents more than 12,000 patient-care workers, has claimed that many UC medical centers are experiencing understaffing and has cited staffing levels as a major reason for recent strikes. The union has been in contract negotiations with the UC system since 2012.

“There is far more use of overtime,” said AFSCME spokesperson Todd Stenhouse. “UC’s policy has been to demand that health care workers do more with less.”

Tim Thrush, vice president of patient care at AFSCME and diagnostic sonographer at UCSF, said that patient-care workers have to work overtime in order to care for every patient that management books.

According to Klein, however, the number of health care staff members employed by the UC system increased from 2008 to 2013, with the number of patient-care technical workers increasing by about 13 percent and the number of health care professional staff members increasing by about 35 percent. Service staff represented by AFSCME increased by less than 1 percent.

“Our medical centers operate in a highly regulated environment and if we had unsafe staffing levels, we simply would not be allowed to operate,” Klein said in an email.

Stenhouse said the UC system should convert its per diem workers, who receive no guaranteed benefits, to its career staff. He added that there is a need for enforceable levels of safe staffing and a committee to ensure safe staffing ratios are maintained.

Contact Sohan Shah at sshah@dailycal.org.

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The law will fix student loan interest rates to the 10-year U.S. Treasury note instead of using the current arbitrary formula. It will also establish interest rate ceilings and lock interest rates for the loan’s lifetime. In the process, interest rates will be slashed for the upcoming 2013-14 academic year, with undergraduate rates reduced from 6.8 percent to 3.86 percent.

The law will also retroactively apply to loans taken out after July 1, when interest rates on federal Stafford loans doubled after Congress failed to prevent the expiration of subsidies. Stafford loan interest rates subsequently doubled from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. The legislation is projected to provide $25 billion in debt relief for students in the next five years.

During the past month, legislators from both parties have tried to address both short-term problems stemming from the expiration of the subsidies and long-term problems such as the national trend of increasing student debt and its effects on the economy.

The final bill passed focuses mainly on the short-term problem of interest rates, and some leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives have questioned the long-term effectiveness of this solution.

“The bill helps reduce costs to students and families, but it does not solve the long-term student debt crisis,” said bill proponent Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., in a press release.

UC officials and students also worry that loan debt may become unsustainable when economic conditions improve and Treasury bill rates start to increase.

“In the long term, accounting for inflation, loans will become more expensive for prospective Berkeley students,” said Rachelle Feldman, director of the UC Berkeley Financial Aid and Scholarships Office.

She suggested variable interest-rate loans and income-sensitive repayment programs as changes to the student aid program, as they would better adapt to changing economic conditions.

Alex Lee, a senior at UC Berkeley, has relied heavily on federal Stafford loans since he started college and will continue to do so. He said that he has no way of paying for college other than loans.

“I’m essentially at the mercy of the student loan system,” Lee said. “Once I get out, I’m pretty much screwed.”

Undergraduate loans for the coming year will drop to 3.86 percent, and graduate student rates will be 5.41 percent. PLUS loans, which are offered to graduate students and the parents of undergraduates, will drop to 6.41 percent. All of these rates will be lower than the current fixed rates of 6.8 percent for Stafford loans and 7.9 percent for PLUS loans.

The bill will also establish rate caps to prevent student loans from becoming too expensive — 8.25 percent for undergraduates, 9.5 percent for graduate students and 10.5 percent for PLUS loans.

Contact Dennis Vidal at dvidal@dailycal.org.

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Wilcox will replace Jane Close Conoley, the interim chancellor, who replaced former chancellor Timothy White in December after White left to become chancellor of the California State University system. Wilcox was announced as nominee for the position on July 25.

While Wilcox’s appointment was approved in a unanimous vote, both Gov. Jerry Brown  and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke out against his compensation package, which includes an annual base salary of $354,000 — an increase of $29,000, or 8.9 percent, from White’s salary.

Brown expressed concerns that Wilcox would receive an increase in salary from the previous chancellor and voted against the compensation package. In November, Brown also opposed an increase in compensation for UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, citing concern with the university’s cost structure and the need for public administrators to exhibit the spirit of “servant leadership.”

Despite Brown’s opposition, the regents approved the compensation package.

UC President Mark Yudof expressed confidence that Wilcox would excel as chancellor.

“Kim Wilcox brings to the University of California distinctive expertise and interests that will serve the Riverside campus and the larger community exceedingly well,” Yudof said.

Bruce Varner, chair of the Board of Regents, served on the search committee and also expressed support of Wilcox.

“Kim Wilcox emerged as the top choice from an outstanding group of candidates,” Varner said. “He has everything it takes to be not only a strong leader and advocate for students, faculty and staff on campus but also a positive force for the larger community.”

Wilcox will begin his position as chancellor of UC Riverside on Aug. 19.

“I’m humbled and honored and excited about this chance,” Wilcox said. “Every university can become better, and great universities can become greater, and that’s what I see happening at the University of California, Riverside.”

Wilcox has served as provost and executive vice president of Michigan State University since 2005. He previously served as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas from 2002 to 2005 and as president and CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents from 1999 to 2002.

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Arya Aliabadi/Staff

Although a new UC policy allowing for open access of research passed Friday and was largely celebrated, some are concerned about an exception that allows some professors to opt out.

When the policy takes effect in November, UC faculty members will be required to deposit manuscripts of their articles in the university’s open access publication repository, eScholarship, licensing their work to the university and making their work available to the public.

The policy will undergo a trial period beginning November 2013, when the UC Academic Senate will implement and monitor progress at UCLA, UC Irvine and UCSF. By November 2014, the policy will be implemented systemwide, including at UC Berkeley, contingent on any changes made after the trial period.

“I think it’s a great step forward for UC,” said Academic Senate chair Robert Powell. “It helps put into perspective that UC faculty are working for the state of California, and many of us have research funded by the state of California. We want to put out work into the public domain so that people can access it without having to pay.”

But some say the policy will be ineffective because it allows faculty members to opt out of the requirement. Faculty members can submit waivers on a per-article basis if they want to submit their research to some academic journals that might wish to retain licensing of the work.

UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cellular biology Michael Eisen said he believes that having the choice to opt out will render the open access policy ineffective.

“As more and more universities have policies like this, more publishers will see these archives as a threat to their business,” Eisen said. “My prediction is that over time, publishers will demand that authors opt out.”

Rodrigo Ochigame, co-founder of The Open Access Initiative at Berkeley — a student group that advocates making scholarly work public — said that he was pleased that the new policy has shifted the default setting of UC research to public access, but he also sees the opt-out option as an issue.

“As the policy is reviewed, we will push for a policy without such a major loophole,” Ochigame said. “If not the elimination of opt-out, at least some mechanism to protect authors from uncooperative publishers.”

But Christopher Kelty, a UCLA professor and member of the Academic Senate committee that drafted the open access policy, said that the opt-out clause was included in the policy from the beginning because it was desired by faculty members.

“When you have a large university like the UC, it’s just impossible to not allow faculty to make decisions about what they do with their work,” Kelty said.

Publishers such as Nature Publishing Group, — which publishes various scientific journals, such as Nature — have been making changes to align themselves with open access policies.

NPG marketing director David Hoole said that NPG has offered open access options to scholars since 2005 — these exclusively include open access journals as well as special licensing agreements that are restricted but open after a period of time.

“NPG shares UC’s objectives to make articles as accessible and reusable as possible within appropriate sustainable business models,” Hoole said.

Contact Elise Lagana-Aliotti at ealiotti@dailycal.org.

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Martha Olney/Courtesy

UC Berkeley economics professor Martha Olney and her wife have been together for 30 years. They were married in 1992 at a religious ceremony and had a legal wedding in 2008.

But during those years, Olney has been unable to extend her UC health benefits to her wife, Esther Hargis, a retired reverend, without paying taxes on the cost of those benefits. The couple also could not pay taxes without facing the logistical and financial issues of filing separately.

Now, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 in June, the university is beginning to implement changes, including programming changes to its payroll and human resources systems that will benefit UC employees and retirees in same-sex marriages.

Previously, Olney and other UC employees in same-sex domestic partnerships were forced to pay federal imputed income taxes for health benefits given to their partners through UC health care plans. In addition, Olney said she faced a government penalty if she let her wife, who is over the age of 65 and eligible for Medicare, use UC health benefits.

Filing tax returns was also much more difficult for domestic partners. Olney reported that she and her wife had to file separate returns for their own incomes and then combine the two into a joint return, forcing them to file nearly three times as much paperwork as a heterosexual couple would have to.

“Our taxes will now be immeasurably easier to complete,” Olney said in an email. “A weekend rather than a full spring break of effort.”

The university will save money as a result of the new benefits system. Previously, it had to pay taxes on 50 percent of employees’ imputed income under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act. Dianne Klein, a UC spokesperson, said that about 2,700 UC employees paid taxes on imputed income last year.

A percentage of those people have same-sex spouses, Klein said, and will no longer have to pay taxes on imputed income once they are moved over to the plan for married couples. The system should be able to accommodate married same-sex couples by mid-September — a delay that has frustrated some employees, including Olney, who said that UC forms had not been updated quickly enough to reflect the rulings.

“I don’t think it’s deliberately discriminatory, but I do think it’s annoying and unnecessary, and there’s no good excuse for it,” she said.

Olney emphasizes the importance of being “just as legally married as any other person on the street” over the benefit of having to spend less time and money on taxes.

“There is the intangible: We are now simply ‘married,’” Olney said. “No asterisk. No caveat. No ‘same-sex’ adjective. Just married. We hold hands in public more, something we used to reserve for Provincetown, the Castro and Gay Pride.”

Most significant, she said, is the newfound equality for a younger generation that will not experience the same tax and benefit conundra that she and her wife have faced.

“A 9-year-old boy who’s realizing he’s gay doesn’t have to have this (realization), ‘Oh, I’ll never be able to get married, and I’ll never have kids,’” Olney said. “Instead, it’s ‘Oh, when I get married, it’ll be two guys instead of a guy and a gal.’”

Contact Simon Greenhill at sgreenhill@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @simondgreenhill.

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Starting in November, academic papers published by UC researchers will be available for free through eScholarship, a UC scholarly publishing service.

The new policy, adopted on July 24, will cover 8,000 UC faculty members at all UC campuses and will facilitate the publication of up to 40,000 papers each year. Papers will still be published in scholarly journals but must be made available for free through eScholarship.

“(The) council’s intent is to make these articles widely — and freely — available in order to advance research everywhere,” said Robert Powell, chair of the Academic Council, in a press release Friday.

Faculty members, however, will also be given the choice to delay or opt out of the policy on a per-article basis.

The decision is part of a broader academic movement to provide open access to publications across the country, particularly for publicly funded research.

The University of California has openly supported AB 609, a California assembly bill that would require publicly funded research institutions to make their research available freely online.

“Scholars at the University of California have a vested interest in ensuring that their work reaches the widest possible audience, including members of the public whose tax dollars support the University’s research,” the university said in a statement regarding the bill. “This increasing restriction on the dissemination of research results runs counter to the spirit in which UC faculty, researchers and students undertake their scholarly activity.”

The Obama administration mandated in February that federally funded research be made publicly available within a year of publication.

As of May, the university spent about $30 million annually on access to 7,500 academic journals, according to UC officials.

Contact Alison Fu at afu@dailycal.org.

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The total UC payroll of roughly $10.6 billion in 2011 grew to $11.2 billion in 2012. The highest source of funding for pay came from medical enterprises, such as teaching hospitals — which became the single highest source of funding at $2.8 billion — and the Medical Compensation Plan.

“The biggest jump was from medical enterprises,” said UC spokesperson Dianne Klein. “They were generating more money.”

Funding from the federal government and from general funds and educational fees dropped from 2011 by nearly $28 million and nearly $40 million, respectively. Funding from private gifts, grants and contracts increased by more than $24 million to $636 million during the same period.

According to a UC press release, the 10 highest-paid UC employees in 2012 were “health sciences faculty members (typically world-renowned specialists in their fields who are paid predominantly from their clinical practices) and athletic coaches (paid from non-state funds).”

Lecturers, other teaching faculty and clinical professors represented the highest percentage of academic personnel payroll, while those in the health care and allied sciences group were the highest percentage of staff payroll. There were no general merit increases for employees not represented by unions in 2012.

“UC salaries are below market,” Klein said. “That does make it hard to attract top talent.”

Klein cited several alternatives to compensation as incentives for working for the UC system, such as the university’s public service mission.

The report attributed the increase in payroll to “a combination of factors, including increased research activity and market pressures for more competitive compensation, particularly in the areas of health care, instruction and research.”

UC Academic Senate Chair Robert Powell stated that the decrease in public funding has made some people feel that the UC system is becoming less and less like a public university.

“We want UC to be for California,” Powell said. “Many of us regret that we have to take more out-of-state students and cut faculty and services. If state funding is there, we won’t have to do these things.”

The highest-paid UC employee in 2012 was former UCLA basketball coach Ben Howland, who earned roughly $2.2 million in gross pay.

Contact Sohan Shah at sshah@dailycal.org.

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Shirin Ghaffary/Staff

Approximately 40 protesters marched from Tolman Hall to the residence of UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks early Wednesday evening to protest the University of California’s implementation of changes to patient-care employees’ wages and benefits last week.

AFSCME Local 3299, a union representing the patient workers, organized the unannounced protest in response to what they said were significant cuts being made to workers’ benefits under the new contract imposed last Wednesday. Protesters cited issues with changes to the patient-care technical unit contract, such as an increase in health insurance premiums, parking increases of up to 10 percent and reductions in paid leave.

Revisions to the plan for AFSCME workers also include a guaranteed step increase of 2 percent for eligible employees on or about July 1 as well as a guaranteed wage increase of 1.5 percent on or about Oct. 1.

“We’re not asking for a big package to go on vacation,” said Maricruz Manzanarez, a UC Berkeley senior custodian and bargaining team member for AFSCME. “We’re just asking to keep what we have.”

The protest largely comprised AFSCME-represented UC workers and a few supporting students. The protest culminated on the front lawn of the chancellor’s mansion, and protesters demanded to meet with Chancellor Dirks to voice their concerns.

The protest ended peacefully after protesters left the chancellor’s residence around 6 p.m. Union organizers say they plan to continue protests in the future.

Shirin Ghaffary is the executive news editor. Contact her at sghaffary@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter at @sghaff.

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Beginning on July 1, 2014, the “1976 tier” of the UCRP, which consists of the majority of employees hired before 2013, will increase its contribution rates from 6.5 percent to 8 percent, and the university contribution rates will increase from 12 percent to 14 percent. This decision has been met with mixed  reactions, with some faculty members supporting the decision and some unions criticizing the increase in employee contribution rates.

The UC Academic Senate voted unanimously to support the contribution increases, and the UC Board of Regents expressed similar support at its meeting on July 17.

From 1990 to 2010, the university stopped paying into its pension program due to a surplus in funds. Following the economic downturn in 2008, however, UCRP suffered a significant decline in the value of its assets, resulting in an underfunded status that has since propelled increasing contributions, such as this last decision, by the university and employees to the plan.

“A gradual ramp-up will be less detrimental,” said Nathan Brostrom, UC executive vice president of business operations. “The trade-off is reasonable.”

As a part of the approved change to UCRP funding, contributions from members who were hired before July 1, 2013, will be decreased by $19 a month.

Although the total contributions to the UCRP fail to meet the regents’ funding program, they will surpass the plan’s normal cost, which is the cost of benefits earned per year.

“It is absolutely necessary, and more needs to be done,” said Academic Senate chair Robert Powell regarding the UCRP change. “The employer contribution needs to increase to 18 percent as soon as possible.”

Many other faculty members are also in support of the new plan because they said they want to preserve their pension funds.

“Right now, the pension fund has an unfunded liability,” said Christine Rosen, vice chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association and an associate professor at Haas School of Business. “We’re trying to fill the hole, but it’s extremely difficult to do it, because it takes a lot of money.”

However, not all are in favor of this plan. The University Professional and Technical Employees Union is among several unions that have expressed discontent regarding the plan.

“We are for contributions and for increased contributions to the fund, but we are also for accountability,” said Tanya Smith, president of the Local 1 chapter of UPTE-CWA 9119, which represents technical, research and professional health care workers at the university. “Employees who are contributing more also should have increased salaries.”

Similarly, members of the American Federation for State County and Municipal Employees 3299 strongly oppose the contribution increases.

“What happened at the UC Regents meeting is a continuation of a terrible pattern,” said Todd Stenhouse, a spokesperson for AFSCME 3299. “This is about doing everything and anything to avoid doing the right thing, which is capping executive pensions.”

The UCRP media release predicts that UC employer contributions will continue to increase in the future.

“Today’s action is part of a broader effort to maintain financially sustainable pension benefits for employees,” the statement says.

Contact Jane Nho at jnho@dailycal.org.

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Lt. John Pike filed for workers’ compensation from his former employer, UC Davis, on June 27, claiming he suffered “psychiatric injury” resulting from the protests, according to the public records on the California Department of Industrial Relations website.

Legal representatives for both Pike and UC Davis will meet to settle the claim at a mandatory settlement conference, which will be held on Aug. 13 in Sacramento. If a settlement is not reached, the case will either move to a new hearing or be sent to a formal trial.

Pike could receive compensation between $130 and $270 per week for anywhere between a few weeks to life, according to the Department of Industrial Relations website. The compensation would come from UC Davis’ insurer, Sedgwick Claims Management Services.

Stephen Hopcraft, a spokesperson representing Pike’s legal team at the Marcus & Regalado law firm, said Pike will have to prove he has a psychiatric injury that is a result of his former job as a UC Davis police lieutenant.

“He could get some level of permanent disability compensation as a result of one specific incident or the cumulative effect of all he went through,” Hopcraft said. “But the legislature has made it very difficult to prove psychiatric injury or any injury that is not physically evident.”

UC Davis public affairs director Andy Fell said that the university’s lawyers are scheduled to engage in a discussion with Pike’s representatives about what benefits, if any, are owed to the former police lieutenant.

“We are not in agreement on benefits being claimed,” Fell said. “A workers’ compensation claim was filed, and the university is required to follow the California workers’ compensation process.”

A UC task force investigated Pike, another officer and former UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza following an incident in November 2011 between police and Occupy protesters on the UC Davis campus. The officers used pepper spray on the group of protesting students during the nationwide Occupy movement, contributing to a public debate about the appropriate use of force against student protesters.

The Reynoso task force reported in April 2012 that “Lieutenant Pike’s use of force in pepper spraying seated protesters was objectively unreasonable.”

On July 24, the 1st District Court of Appeals in California ruled in favor of a suit filed in May by the Los Angeles Times and The Sacramento Bee that the UC Regents and Federated University Police Officers Association cannot withhold the identities of the other police officers involved in the Nov. 11 pepper-spray incident as per the Freedom of Information Act.

The other officers’ identities will not be disclosed for at least 40 days, in the event that the FUPOA appeals the court’s decision.

Contact Stephanie Petrillo at spetrillo@dailycal.org.

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