Instruction will likely halt for two days for thousands of undergraduates at University of California campuses beginning Wednesday as lecturers strike over allegations of unfair labor practices.
The strike planned for this week is related to, but separate from, the larger saga of contract sticking points. At issue is what the union says are seven instances of unfair labor practices by UC leadership going back 20 months.
UC lecturers typically teach a third of the instruction UC undergraduates receive. About 6,500 lecturers are union members but roughly 4,500 teach at any given time.
The lecturers’ union, University Council-American Federation of Teachers, has been negotiating for a new contract with UC leadership since April 2019. Because the two sides have been unable to strike a deal, a state labor mediator got involved this summer, a sign of how deeply rooted the labor dispute is.
Union officials said the strike will occur regardless of what happens before Wednesday. “Our strike notification is not conditional,” said Caroline Luce, a lecturer and spokesperson for the lecturer union.
But Tuesday morning, the union walked back the absolute certainty that a strike will happen. “It is likely, but it is not inevitable,” said Mia McIver, the lecturer union president.
The UC negotiating team can offer two things Tuesday that may call off the strike. Both are the latest unfair labor practices the union filed against the university.
First, McIver said the union wants all of its lecturers to be eligible for paid family leave for eight weeks at 100% of pay. She said the UC isn’t budging on its offer: paid family leave at 70% for lecturers who worked 1,250 hours in a year, which excludes most lecturers because of how many are part-time. The union also wants the UC to stop sending out summaries of the contract negotiations to its members, which the union argues are misleading.