University of California administrative professionals, a group that includes 1,200 programmers, counselors, analysts, assistants and other employees at UCSD, will soon vote on whether to join the University Professionals and Technical Employees, a union representing about 12,000 UC technical employees, researchers and health care workers.
The proposal comes after UPTE submitted a union petition with signatures from 30 percent of UC administrative professionals to the Public Employment Relations Board on May 29, 2003.
The administrative professionals is the largest group of non-unionized UC employees.
PERB will mail ballots to employees’ home addresses on Feb. 11, who will have 30 days to vote and return the ballots. PERB will inform UPTE and the university of the results in March. Both UPTE and the University of California Office of the President have encouraged administrative professionals to vote on the initiative.
“”It’s extremely important that every individual administrative professional employee vote in this election, given the potential impact on their employment with the university,”” UC spokesman Paul Schwartz said. “”The university does not discourage or encourage unionization, but we very much encourage employees getting the facts about what unionization may mean for them.””
Union officials say they are confident that the administrative professionals will vote in favor of unionization. For the past year, UPTE supporters have held lectures and training sessions and mailed brochures to educate administrative professionals about unionization.
“”A lot of the founding members of UPTE were in job titles that are in this group of administrative professionals and they wanted to be covered by an UPTE contract,”” said Carolan Buckmaster, vice president of UPTE’s San Diego chapter. “”So we looked at the interest, and there was a lot of it.””
However, while many administrative professionals are optimistic about the union’s prospects, not all employees are behind the initiative.
“”There are some groups that are very eager to unionize and then there are some others who, for whatever reason, seem to feel that they’re above it, that their job skills are in demand and that the university would never do anything to them negatively,”” library assistant Bill Pfender said.
If the initiative is passed, UPTE would immediately conduct bargaining surveys in preparation for negotiating a contract with the university. Currently, administrative professionals are under the university’s general employment policies. According to Buckmaster, UPTE already has some of the potential contract language prepared. Raises and retirement benefits are two of the main issues that UPTE would pursue in negotiations.
“”The first thing that we would look at would be getting these people a raise,”” Buckmaster said. “”We used to say that these people got the crumbs off the table. Well, the last two years, they haven’t even had any crumbs … In this budget crisis, if this group has any chance of getting a raise in the near future, the only chance they have is banding together as a collective voice under the banner of UPTE.””
Programmer/analyst Dean Conde agreed, adding that increased representation and stability were other attractiive pars of unionization.
“”I think basically it’s to have support, the kind of support that we don’t have now,”” Conde said. “”I’ve been here for 13 years and I’ve just gone on the whims of what’s happened every year, with the budget and whatnot. Now with the union potentially representing us, more of a voice can be heard.””
