Representatives of the UC unions converged on the Board of Regents meeting, Wednesday November 19th.  The Regents are the university's governing board, controlling the operation and budget of ten campuses with about 191,000 students and a budget for fiscal 2008-09 of $18.1 billion.

To provide input at their public meetings, they allow 30 minutes for public comment, with each person getting one minute.  They permit free speech, but they don't listen.  Why should they?  Of the 26 regents, 18 are appointed by the governor for 12-year terms, one student representative is appointed by the regents for a one-year term, the rest are ex-officio members, such as the governor and other politicians, as well as the UC president and president of the Alumni Associations of UC.

source: University of California

A limited number of persons may sit in with the Regents during the public comment portion.  Since there were speakers from several unions, including CUE, from many campuses, including Berkeley and Irvine, many of us were directed to a "room" that was set up for the overflow.  The "room" turned out to be loudspeakers set up outside of the Community Center.  We could hear and cheer, but the only seats were cold concrete benches.

Several of the comments were incisive and moving, except to the Regents, who sat bored and irritated.  How dare anyone question their wisdom!

The university has vowed to provide 0% raises in the current fiscal year.  A glance at their budget shows nearly $169 million for "faculty and staff compensation increases" of 5%.  CUE and the other unions are demanding our workers receive market rate pay.  Seems reasonable.

Compensation is important because the work we do is important.  It's an issue of respect and of continuity.  Kevin Rooney is a UCSF Sr. Environmental Health & Safety Technician and an UPTE chief negotiator.  The crowd went wild when he said:

You, the Regents, are responsible for the delay in finding cures for cancer. You, the Regents are responsible for the delay in finding a cure for AIDS. You, the Regents are responsible for the countless delays in finding cures for Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, mad cow disease, leukemia and hundreds of other diseases.

When a researcher leaves to find better pay & benefits elsewhere, it takes up to 2 years to train their replacement. This is time and money wasted. All because you find us expendable & replaceable.

There are built-in wage increases to the research grants for our people. UC has the money. Endowments exceed $7 Billion per year. You have the money. Management gets market pay, what about us? You have the money. Vote to make the research staff, and ALL STAFF a priority so that we may find cures to AIDS, Alzheimer’s, leukemia, and cancer!

You have the choice to make research a priority by stopping the 30% turnover in the Research & Technical units that do the research to find cures for all of these diseases. Make your priority to provide market pay for research! Make the staff a priority & say ‘NO’ to 30% turnover.

Research reveals UC has an endowment of just over $9.6 billion, the seventh largest in the United States of America.

The day before this meeting, the Phoenix Project for UC Democracy kicked off, according to an article in the Daily Planet.  One panelist, Berkeley City Councilmember-elect Jesse Arreguin said, "The issue isn't that we're not doing enough to be heard.  The issue is that the university isn't listening."

The group is pushing for a systematic change to make the regents and the administration more accountable.  Senator of the Associated Students of UC (ASUC), Christina Oatfield told the group that the adminiistration works harder to "frame" an issue than to deal with the issue itself.  In her case, it's the skyrocketing student fees.

In our case, it's flat salaries that ignore inflation and other increases, such as parking, insurance and retirement.

Know Your Regent