[May 4, 2007]

The University of California recognizes that salaries for many of its employees are behind market, including its lower-paid staff who are hardest hit by California's high cost of living. To help address this, UC recently gave special raises to approximately 4,000 non-represented lower-paid employees and to more than 11,800 UC clerical employees, consistent with the Regents' overall commitment to market-competitive compensation and benefits for all employees.

UC has also proposed similar wage increases for approximately 19,500 other lower-paid UC employees represented by the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) unions.

Negotiations with AFSCME have been especially challenging, primarily over the issue of raises for custodians, and we want to be sure everyone within the UC community, especially our custodians, accurately understands UC's position in these discussions.

One of the key obstacles to an agreement, and to implementation of raises for custodians and other AFSCME-represented employees, is the union's refusal to distribute raises equitably.

UC has proposed $8.9 million in salary increases for 14,300 AFSCME-represented UC patient care and services employees, including $4.3 million in raises for nearly 3,000 custodians, with the majority of the money going to improve those salaries that are most below market. These increases would be in addition to those already provided, or scheduled to be provided, under current labor contracts for UC service workers -- approximately 4% per year for the remaining two years of a three-year contract.

AFSCME continues to refuse our proposed distribution, and instead is demanding a distribution that would give disproportionately high raises to custodians at Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara - locations with salaries already above market.

UC cannot support the union's distribution plan that disproportionately benefits custodians at three campuses at the expense of lower-paid employees at other locations. UC's proposal is fair and distributes raises equitably so that UC's hardworking lower-paid workers throughout the entire state benefit.

We continue to work hard on our side of these negotiations to resolve this matter quickly, and we remain hopeful that we will reach a mutually acceptable agreement so that we can implement more raises for our lower-paid employees.

For more information, see the factsheet.

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