Churn

If you watched the Regents meetings of last week on the links we provided, particularly the public comments, you heard many comments by lecturers concerning the state of bargaining with UC over their union contract. There were also some comments from ladder faculty in support.

At issue was the concept of "churn," rotating of lecturers in and out of teaching positions. Lecturers are not ladder faculty - although the news media (and students) often refer to them "professors." They can acquire a version of tenure, but only by continuous or near-continuous teaching and then a review.

CalMatters has an article today entitled "UC workforce churn: Why a quarter of lecturers don’t return each year" which discusses this matter.*

The article states at one point: "The two sides are now in state-led mediation through the California Public Employment Relations Board. If mediation doesn’t lead to both parties agreeing on a contract, state law allows either side to call for the creation of a fact-finding panel that can issue non-binding solutions. The UC Board of Regents, which oversees the UC system, then may have to vote publicly on whether to adopt those recommendations."

It is very unlikely, however, that the Regents are going to vote a proposed union contract up or down in some future public session. They generally go along with UCOP on labor relations matters, perhaps in some cases influencing matters behind the scenes or in the closed sessions where such matters are discussed. However, particularly the more recently-appointed Regents are politically attuned and may well be sensitive to lecturers' complaints about churn and other areas of dispute.

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*https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2021/10/uc-workforce-lecturers/.