Yesterday, we noted two letters from the systemwide Academic Senate that seemed to focus on possible impinging of collective bargaining for student-workers and the role of faculty in supervising graduate students.
The Senate also seems concerned about labor relations legislation impinging on that role and is opposing a proposed state constitutional amendment that would extend general labor relations standards to UC employees.
See the letter below including the bold face elements:
June 5, 2024
The Honorable Catherine Blakespear
Chair, Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee
1020 N Street, Room 533
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: Assembly Constitutional Amendment 6 (Haney) Scheduled for hearing in the Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee, June 11, 2024
Position: OPPOSE
Dear Chair Blakespear:
Writing on behalf on the systemwide Academic Senate of the University of California (UC), we respectfully oppose Assembly Constitutional Amendment 6 (ACA 6). While the proposed legislation is well-intentioned and aims to extend certain labor protections to UC employees, it raises several serious concerns from the faculty perspective. In their opposition letter, the UC Office of the President has clarified why most of the proposed protections are redundant and how the missions of the University are compromised by aspects of the amendment. We too are deeply concerned about a constitutional amendment that would set a precedent that runs counter to UC’s autonomy and would also hold the University to a different standard than other higher education institutions in the state. As chair of the UC Academic Senate, I highlight those aspects that will have deleterious effects on faculty, students, and other members of our academic community who receive training and mentoring from faculty.
UC faculty have several interrelated missions: instruction, research and creative endeavors, and public service. The framework specifically developed for state employees that would be imposed on all UC employees, including faculty, under the proposed amendment is ill-suited to the unique type of work that faculty do and how they dynamically balance these missions. The instructional calendar includes ebbs and flows of intensity not only throughout the year but within a given academic term. Research and creative activity follow their own and various patterns, whether undertaking field or archival work, directing or participating in a performance, conducting an experiment overnight, undertaking time-intensive research while on sabbatical, and so forth. This lack of suitable fit is also largely true for our graduate trainees, especially those who hold teaching assistantships and research appointments and who must simultaneously, in their primary role as students, have sufficient flexibility to manage their academic progress.
The proposed legislation also puts at risk the faculty’s ability to carry out important research collaborations. For example, many faculty research projects involve co-primary investigators and subcontractors with other institutions, both in and out of state. If a state-wide review of such collaborations and contracts were necessary, this would severely impair the efficiency and competitive position of the UC research enterprise. It should be noted that unfettered collaboration is critical to the success of our multilocation UC-managed National Laboratories.
Under ACA 6, UC faculty and student trainees would lose the necessary flexibility to efficiently and appropriately allocate our work time and to effectively manage our research endeavors. This, in turn, will have a negative impact on the University’s research productivity and teaching excellence. The proposed legislation, impairing how faculty organize their own time and labor, would strike at the heart of UC’s missions and at the entire faculty’s academic freedom insofar as it will impede our ability to deliver our best work in service to the state.
Sincerely,
James Steintrager, Chair
Academic Council
Source: https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/reports/aca-6-oppose-20240605.pdf.
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Note: ACA 6 reads as follows:
WHEREAS, California did not have basic state labor standards in place when Section 9 of Article IX of the California Constitution (hereafter “Article IX”) was amended in 1879 to constitute the University of California as a public trust; and
WHEREAS, Despite the California Supreme Court previously holding in San Francisco Labor Council v. Regents of the University of California (1980) (26 Cal.3d 785, 789-790) that “it is well settled that general police power regulations governing private persons and corporations may be applied to the university” and that state legislation “may be made applicable to the University when the legislation regulates matters of statewide concern,” and despite the fact that the Legislature has adopted such laws, the University of California has continually taken the position that Article IX excludes hundreds of thousands of Californians who work or perform work for the University of California from basic state labor standards that apply to all other California employers; and
WHEREAS, Some intermediate California courts have held that Article IX excludes Californians who work or perform work for the University of California from some basic state labor standards that apply to all other California employers; and
WHEREAS, Every California worker should have the same basic state labor standards, including equal pay standards, payment of a minimum wage, overtime pay, timely payment of wages, payment of a prevailing wage, and restrictions on outsourcing of jobs; and
WHEREAS, The outdated nearly 150-year-old exclusion of basic state labor standards for Californians who work or perform work for the University of California can be changed only by amending Article IX by a vote of the People of California; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly, the Senate concurring, That the Legislature of the State of California at its 2023–24 Regular Session commencing on the fifth day of December 2022, two-thirds of the membership of each house concurring, hereby proposes to the people of the State of California, that the Constitution of the State be amended as follows:
First— This measure shall be known, and may be cited, as the Basic Labor Standards at the University of California Act.
Second— That subdivision (h) is added to Section 9 of Article IX thereto, to read:
(h) (1) Notwithstanding subdivision (a) and unless otherwise provided by a state law, employees of the Regents of the University of California shall have the right to, and shall be covered by, the following basic state labor standards as they apply to employees of the state on or after January 1, 2025:
(A) Equal pay standards, including those established pursuant to the California Equal Pay Act and California Fair Pay Act of 2015.
(B) The payment of a minimum wage.
(C) The timely payment of wages.
(D) The payment of overtime and standards governing the hours of work.
(E) Occupational safety and health standards.
(F) Meal and rest breaks.
(G) Paid leave, including paid sick leave.
(H) Standards against displacement and contracting out of work as provided for in state laws governing the nonemergency use of personal service contracts by the state.
(2) Notwithstanding subdivision (a) and unless otherwise provided by a state law, individuals who perform work for the Regents of the University of California shall have the right to the payment of a prevailing wage for work paid for, in part or in whole, whole or in part, out of University of California funds, if that work would be considered public works under prevailing wage laws applicable to the state on or after January 1, 2025.
(3) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), the Legislature may enact laws to further the rights established by this subdivision, to establish, define, or specify basic state labor standards applicable to the Regents of the University of California, or to establish other health, safety, and labor protections for individuals performing work for the Regents of the University of California.
(4) This subdivision shall not apply to a contract entered into before January 1, 2025, if compliance with this subdivision would impair the obligations of that contract.
(5) This subdivision shall not preclude the state labor standards and protections identified in this subdivision from being superseded by more favorable terms in a collective bargaining agreement.
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