Limited Order Bars Only About 50 Workers from UC One-Day Strike Today

Westwood demonstration during prior 2-day strike

We noted yesterday that UC sought an order through PERB barring certain critical workers from the one-day strike today.

According to the State Worker blog of the Sacramento Bee:

...A judge has banned a relative handful of employees who provide patient care at University of California medical facilities from participating in a statewide strike set for Wednesday.  Sacramento County Superior Court Judge David I. Brown said that a strike by about 50 AFSCME-covered employees, mostly respiratory theratpists, would “create a substantial and imminent threat to the health and safety of the public and patients of the five UC Medical Centers.” Brown issued a temporary restraining order barring that group from a work stoppage...

Full story at http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/19/5927408/judge-bans-some-university-of.html

The CapitolAlert blog of the Bee reported:

...Lawmakers will join striking University of California workers at picket lines across the state today, backing union members who allege that management cracked down after a previous strike with a campaign of intimidation. Rallying legislators are expected to include Sen. Leland Yee in San Francisco, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner in Berkeley, Assemblyman Mark Stone in Santa Cruz, Assemblyman Richard Pan in Davis, Sen. Alex Padilla in Los Angeles and Assemblywomen Lorena Gonzalez and Shirley Weber in San Diego...

Source: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/11/am-alert-lao-forecasts-californias-post-prop-30-financial-future.html

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/19/5927408/judge-bans-some-university-of.html#storylink=cpy

Short Day at the Grand Hotel

Yours truly went by the site of the Grand Hotel yesterday around 4 pm.  Seemed like everyone but one guy had gone home by then (and he seemed to be leaving).

Guess everyone was pooped:

Listen to Regents Meeting of Nov. 14, 2013

The November 14 meeting of the Regents opened with public comments.  These included concerns over staffing and safety at UC hospitals, a Berkeley city councilman who called for pension caps on high-paid UC executives, students advocating fossil fuel divestment, concerns about student costs and debt, and spending on “amenities” for students at UC.

The Committee on Finance approved budgets for operations and capital after extensive discussion and back-and-forth with Governor Brown who said that UC was asking for $120 million more than it was going to get.  There was a bit more push back from Regents and administrators with regard to Brown’s remarks than had characterized prior meetings.  In particular, the fact that the state paid for CSU and community college retirement (to CalPERS) but resisted payments to the UC pension was referenced.  There was concern about rising debts of UC as a result of state budgetary pressures.  The Committee also endorsed changes in the UC mortgage program to comply with new federal rules.

UC’s pension was reported to have a market funding ratio of 79%.  The issue of the sequester-related nonpayment by the federal government (Dept. of Energy) of $80 million for UC retirement expenses related to the labs was raised (as it had been at earlier meetings last week).  There was discussion of what was said to be a $700 million liability reduction over 30 years for the 4,000 out-of-state retirees who are being moved off UC health plans, given a flat dollar contribution, and referred to an external contractor for counseling about what they could buy from local exchanges.  [Yesterday, we posted the audio just for that segment.]  

The Committee on Compensation approved pay levels for some administrators prompting an observation by Gov. Brown that the rest of the state paid less for similar employees.  President Napolitano reported on faculty honors.

You can hear the entire session at the link below:

You can hear just the governor’s remarks at:

Possible Order Limiting Hospital Strike Participation Tomorrow

Westwood demonstration as part of prior 2-day strike

The State Worker blog of the Sacramento Bee is reporting that the Public Employment Relations Board is seeking to limit the number of AFSCME employees at UC who can participate in tomorrow's hospital strike for safety reasons.  [An earlier posting on this blog noted that a tentative settlement with nurses indicated nurses would not participate.]  TAs who might participate would presumably be unaffected by the PERB action.

The Bee article is at:
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/19/5924205/uc-medical-centers-bracing-for.html

UCLA History: Extension - May 1931

This contemporary photo shows the location of the UC Extension office in downtown LA in 1931.  As is evident, the original office building is no longer there.  But if you click on the link below, you can read the extension catalog for May 1931 which featured a variety of courses on business, languages, history, and "Radio Telephony and Talking Moving Pictures."  At the time, the extension service was run out of Berkeley with representation for the LA programs from UCLA.

We had earlier posted similar catalogs:
http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/05/ucla-history-extension-in-1930.html

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/12/in-earlier-posts-scroll-to-bottom-we.html

http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/06/ucla-history-uc-extension-in-september.html

Link below to the May 1931 edition:

Noted UCLA Sociologist Suzanne Bianchi Dies

Suzanne M. Bianchi, a UCLA sociologist who helped alter perceptions of working mothers during three decades investigating changes in American family life, died Nov. 4 at her home in Santa Monica. She was 61. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said her daughter Jennifer Browning. An expert on gender, work and families, Bianchi was best known for her research examining the amount of time mothers spent with their children. Most surprising was the finding she reported in 2000 that despite a dramatic influx of women into the workforce, the amount of time spent with children was relatively unchanged... She began her career as a demographer for the U.S. Census Bureau, where she remained until 1994, when she joined the faculty at the University of Maryland. She eventually chaired the university's sociology department and directed the Maryland Population Research Center. In 2009 she moved to UCLA, where she was Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities...

Full obituary at www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-suzanne-bianchi-20131118,0,785351.story

Listen to Regents Discuss Retiree Health on Nov. 14, 2013

We'll post the audio for the entire Nov. 14 Regents meeting subsequently.  However, below is a link just to a discussion of the issue of retiree health.  As blog readers will likely know, as part of the open enrollment, UC retirees who are out of state are being dropped from UC programs and given a flat dollar contribution to buy their own policies from local exchanges.  An external contractor - Extend Health - has been engaged to provide counseling for out-of-state retirees.

According to the back and forth between regents and UC administrators, this change will drop the liability to the retiree health program by $700 million.  It was also pointed out that because the UC liability is limited to the flat dollar amount, the risk of health care costs has been transferred to the out-of-state retirees.  In the course of the discussion, it appears that consideration is being given to apply the out-of-state approach at some point in the future to in-state retirees as well.

You can find a link to the discussion below:  [Audio only with still picture.]

Post by CalPolicy.