UCOP announces 2nd deal with AFT

The UC Office of the President announced today (Oct. 4) another tentative deal with the American Federation of Teachers union — reaching agreement with the AFT bargaining unit for the university’s more than 3,000 lecturers.

The announcement followed by one day UCOP's report on a deal with the AFT bargaining unit for the university's more than 350 librarians.

In today's news release about lecturers, UCOP described a three-year agreement on wages, health benefits and other important issues.

"Lecturers provide key instructional services at our campuses,” said Dwaine Duckett, vice president of UC Human Resources. “We’re pleased that we’ve reached a balanced agreement that rewards the lecturers for their hard work while taking into consideration the major funding constraints that the university is experiencing.”

According to the news release, the tentative agreement includes these highlights:

• Participation in a one-time (2011-12) salary increase program for nonrepresented faculty and staff — a program that is based on individual performance. Merit increases for the lecturers would be effective Oct. 1.
• Participation in the annual academic merit program for 2012-13 and 2013-14, for which the lecturers as academic employees would be eligible as are all nonrepresented, nonstudent academic employees.
• The university and the union would reopen negotiations on salary in 2012-13 and 2013-14.
• Lecturers would pay the same rates for health care benefits as tenured faculty and nonrepresented employees. UC would continue to pay the bulk of health insurance premium costs, or about 87 percent of costs on average.
• Lecturers would contribute to the UC Retirement Plan at the same rate as nonrepresented employees. Contributions would be 5 percent of pay starting July 1, 2012. UC has committed to contributing 10 percent beginning July 1, 2012.
• The university and the union would negotiate any new contributions and post-employment benefit changes to the UC Retirement Plan for 2013-14.

Negotiations began in February. The university expects to receive the results of the union’s ratification vote by mid-October. If ratified by the union, the agreement would run through Sept. 30, 2014.

The other UC-AFT deal would provide merit pay increases to the librarians.

A UCOP news release quoted Peter Chester, labor relations contract negotiator: “We believe this is a fair proposal that rewards librarians for their dedication and hard work, while being mindful of the tough economic climate the university is facing."

According to the news release, the tentative agreement includes these highlights:

• Participation in the annual academic merit program for 2011-12, for which the librarians as academic employees would be eligible as are all nonstudent academic employees. Increases would be retroactive to July 1, 2011.
• Participation in a one-time (2011-12) salary increase program for nonrepresented faculty and staff — a program that is tied to performance evaluations. Merit increases for the librarians would be effective Oct. 1.

The university expects to receive the results of the union ratification vote by Oct. 15.

Negotiations began in June and, under the terms of a four-year contract running through Sept. 30, 2012, were limited to 2011-12 wages.

Survey isn’t ours, but it’s legit

The UC Office of the President issued a memo this week about a survey that some employees received by e-mail from Hart Research Associates. UCOP advised that Hart Research is a real, nationally known market research firm — and has even done work for UC in the past.

However, the survey that arrived recently is not a UC-sponsored survey. “But we’ve confirmed that it is legitimate (not spam or a phishing exercise),” said Paul Schwartz, director of Internal Communications. “Hart is conducting this survey on behalf of another client and obtained UC e-mails from a vendor who compiles e-mail lists using publicly available e-mail addresses.”

UCOP is advising employees that the survey is not a UC project and their participation is strictly voluntary.

Payroll data online

UC’s annual employee compensation report came out in late August — but, at that time, the underlying data had not been posted online.

Now it is, with the UC Office of the President explaining that it decided the data should be part of the university’s annual payroll disclosure.

New Staff Welcome

More than 150 people have signed up for next week’s New Staff Welcome, for people who joined the Davis campus staff within the last year (and their supervisors).

“The New Staff Welcome is an opportunity to network, meet campus constituency group leaders, learn about valuable staff resources and enjoy a delicious lunch,” the invitation reads.

The Staff Diversity Administrative Advisory Committee and the Office of Campus Community Relations sponsor the welcome, now in its third year.

Next week’s event is scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday (Oct. 4) in Ballroom A at the Activities and Recreation Center. RSVPs should be directed to Jennifer Nicole-Wong Wade, jnwwong@ucdavis.edu.

WorkLife and Wellness brown bag

The WorkLife and Wellness Brown Bag Series starts next week with a presentation by Gopal Kapur, sharing recipes from a program that he calls “Stop Killing Yourself” — in reference to his goal of seeing the people of the United States give up high calorie and low nutrition foods.

The brown bag is set for the noon hour Thursday, Oct. 6, in the Hamilton Room at the Heitman Staff Learning Center. All programs in the brown bag series are free and open to everyone in
campus community, with no preregistration necessary.

More information on Kapur's presentation. Click here for the WorkLife and Wellness Brown Bag Series calendar for all of 2011-12.

Meet your neighbors

Many communities across the nation hold Neighbors Night Out events in the summer. UC Davis, the ASUCD and the city of Davis work together on Davis Neighbors Night Out — and it doesn’t happen until after the new academic year has begun, thus giving students the opportunity to participate.

After all, the goal is to bring students and their neighbors together. “The event is an informal opportunity for neighborhoods to increase familiarity and communication among neighbors by way of a block party,” reads the Davis Neighbors Night Out website.

This year’s event, the sixth annual, is scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 9 — at the beginning of homecoming week.

Read more.

Other upcoming events

• Bike auction — 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 8.

• Safety Day on the Quad — 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11.

• Dog ‘n’ Jog — For you and your pooch, or just you, to raise money for vector-borne disease control awareness. The fun run, Saturday, Oct. 15, is coordinated by the Student Chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

• Horse Day: A Hands-On Approach to Equine Topics — 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 22 

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