Union events at UC Berkeley

Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - Bancroft and Telegraph at noon
UPTE and UAW Informational Picket @UCB and systemwide (see press advisory below)
The battle to make sure federal money goes to towards education and jobs is here! This will be an informational picket, and no work stoppages are planned. The purpose is to protest that UC has received millions in stimulus money from the federal government yet is still hiding behind the state budget to justify reduced wages, layoffs and cuts to education. UCB received $65 million in additional stimulus money.

While the main focus is post docs, researchers and technicians, it should be noted that a large portion of this money should go towards the budget gap for other support staff and education. Overhead on NIH and NSF grants is more than 50%. Even the UCB Dean of Biological Sciences Mark Schlissel noted that the research funds also come with extra federal money to cover campus indirect costs, thereby supporting research and teaching facilities and administration that have been cut in the face of systemwide budget reductions.


Thursday, December 17, 2009 Rally Against the Layoffs and for Reinstating the Workers @ UCB location TBA
UPTE, AFSCME and CUE
Over 300 UCB union workers have been laid off, as well as many other unrepresented workers and unionized 'casual' workers. In addition, the number of GSI and lecturer positions have been reduced and will be further reduced next semester. 1,900 new layoffs have been threatened. With the worst unemployment rate in decades, alternative employment is increasingly difficult to find and in many cases partners or spouses of these UC workers are already unemployed. Many UC workers are paid below a family sustaining wage and so they have little savings if any to get by on during unemployment.

Early retirements, the hiring freeze, reduced hours, and attrition has resulted in hardship on our community by less employment opportunity, more unemployed, and to workers and students who are left with more work and less time to do it in, and to students who receive fewer services. In some cases, workers are being replaced by contract labor or temporary and/or casual positions. This means in addition to unemployment UC is replacing stable union jobs with temporary employment, often without health benefits.