Post-strike grading

The UAW strike is over, but considerable fall quarter grading remains unfinished. Senate and Unit-18 faculty are not obliged and cannot be compelled to complete grading that was assigned to readers and graduate student instructors during the fall quarter. The university can hire readers and teaching assistants (including those employed during the fall) to complete the grading with appropriate compensation. Leaders of UC Faculty Associations, UC-AFT, and UAW issued a letter to UCOP Labor Relations calling for central funding of the extra costs associated with completing fall grading. You can read the letter here and below:

January 4, 2023

Letitia Silas
Executive Director, Labor Relations
UC Office of the President
1111 Franklin Street
Oakland, CA 94607

CC: President Michael V. Drake

Delivered via Email to: Letitia.Silas@ucop.edu

Dear Labor Relations Executive Director Silas,

We write collectively as representatives of UAW 2865, UC-AFT, CUCFA, and SCFA. Due to the UAW’s strike over UC’s unfair labor practices during contract negotiations, a significant amount of the labor required to complete Fall 2022 grade submission remains outstanding.

The workers represented by our unions and associations understand their rights and protections. Senate faculty members and lecturers have no obligation to volunteer to pick up labor struck by ASEs employed in their classes. Readers and teaching assistants in UAW 2865 enjoyed legal protections during their strike, and their appointments for the Fall Quarter terminated on December 31 at the latest while the strike was active.

Should the University require additional labor for submitting any Fall 2022 grades, it can hire readers (including those who previously served as TAs for the class) under the terms of the new contract and/or hire lecturers at a rate set by negotiation between UC-AFT and the university administration. Further, given that departments were not responsible for the strike’s duration and/or resolution, we also expect this labor to be centrally funded. Finally, we ask that the administration communicate a process for accessing these funds as soon as possible so that course sponsoring agencies can hire replacement workers and instructors are not pressured to take on labor beyond their customary duties.

We are willing to meet to discuss this matter further.

Yours,

Rafael Jaime, UAW 2865 President
Katie Rodger, UC-AFT President
Constance Penley, CUCFA President
Jessica Taft, SCFA Co-Chair

FAQs Part Three: More Q’s About Grading

This is the third in a series of CUCFA’s FAQ’s about the UAW strike. The first set of FAQs is available here. The second set is available here.

Q1: Who will be responsible for the grading when the strike is resolved?

A1: If a settlement is reached before the end of the current quarter/semester, your existing ASE may be able to complete the grading, but only if it fits within their contractual workload limits. If a resolution is not reached until the next quarter/semester, an agreement about grading may be part of the settlement between UC and UAW. If not, then departments will need to hire ASEs on new contracts to complete that work. CUCFA advocates for this additional labor to be centrally funded rather than a departmental responsibility.

Q2: Can I submit P/NP grades on campuses where that option exists for students and where they had done enough to pass the class before the strike started without picking up struck work?

A2: The option to provide P/NP grades on some campuses does not alter the fact that the calculation of a passing grade is ordinarily work performed by ASEs, so it remains struck work.

Q3: If all the labor of calculating grades was already completed before the strike, or my ASE was not on strike and has graded all work, should I submit grades?

A3: In this case, you should submit grades unless you have chosen to honor the picket line and withhold your labor from the university.

Q4: Can I volunteer to perform some of my ASE’s grading work for students with exceptional circumstances and still maintain my HEERA protections?

A4: Faculty who are refusing to perform struck work could volunteer to do some small amount of struck work to provide grades to individuals with exceptional circumstances. This should be done sparingly and may not be necessary, as many campuses have made contingency plans for impacted students.

Q5. How should faculty handle grades for graduate courses numbered 299 or 500?

A5. Faculty should exercise caution with course numbers like 299 and 500, where the sole purpose of enrolling in those courses is to work as a Graduate Student Researcher (represented by SRU) or Teaching Assistant (a position represented in the ASE unit). Communications that “interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees because of their exercise of rights guaranteed under HEERA,” including the right to strike, violate Section 3571(a) of HEERA. UAW has already filed unfair labor practice charges for this kind of action. Their lawyers have sent a “cease and desist” letter to UC labor relations and labor relations offices on each campus. Although faculty are generally unlikely to be found supervisory or managerial employees under HEERA, they can still exercise institutional authority or take adverse actions against UAW members, and faculty should ensure that their actions are not construed as interfering with or discriminating against employees for the exercise of protected rights. Additionally an “unsatisfactory” grade in one of these courses could not only be construed as retaliation, but it could also put grads in “poor academic standing,” which can lead to loss of health insurance or visas.

Response to message from Provost and EVP of Academic Affairs Michael Brown

Dear Colleagues,

On Thursday, December 1, Senate faculty received a potentially misleading email from the President’s Office of the University of California, titled “Regarding Faculty Rights and Responsibilities,” and signed by Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs Michael Brown.

This communication fails to distinguish between being on strike and declining to pick up struck labor. It is the case that the university may dock pay for any faculty on strike, although it is unclear precisely how they would enforce that policy. Faculty pay can only be docked for the period during which they choose to strike, not for the duration of the multi-unit strike itself. While a partial strike by faculty can be unprotected, it is unclear what mechanism of reporting or tracking the University is using to determine whether faculty are continuing to engage in non-instructional labor, such as their own research. Similarly, it is also not apparent what mechanism of reporting would be used to discipline those they believed have violated the Faculty Code of Conduct by engaging in the unprotected activity of a partial strike if they had continued non-instructional labor whether for university service or their own research.

The vast majority of faculty have not been on strike; they have continued to teach their classes and to support the strike in other ways. However, UC is now asking Senate faculty to take up the struck labor of their ASEs on strike. Struck labor would include returning grades for classes with ASEs where ASEs are responsible for grading and/or grade submission. Refusing to do this additional labor, for no further compensation, does not represent being on strike. Refusing to pick up the struck labor of ASE grading is not the same as a sympathy strike, and so the issue of “all or nothing,” or “whole” or “partial” striking is irrelevant. Faculty have the HEERA-protected right not to take up this struck labor if they choose not to do so. And their pay cannot be docked for not picking up struck labor. If you choose not to pick up the struck labor of ASE grading, please register that here in this anonymous tally.

Senate faculty are being told that if they do not pick up the struck work of ASE grading some undergraduate students will be harmed. We share the concern for students that depend on their grades to access financial aid, to earn scholarships, and who need their grades for other reasons. However, it is the university’s responsibility to make contingency plans that ensure these students are not impacted by the strike, and some campuses have already communicated to undergraduates that such plans are in place. They have the capacity, as they did during the pandemic, to be flexible about grades and deadlines.

We urge all Senate faculty to support the multi-unit strike by graduate students, postdocs and student researchers. Low paid work and uncompetitive wages damage the capacity of the university to deliver world class teaching and research. You have HEERA protected legal rights to go on strike, and yet it is critical not to confuse that with your right to refuse to take up the additional struck labor of grading.

CUCFA Message on Picking up Struck Work

Dear colleagues,

We have entered the second week of the UAW multi-unit strike. CUCFA is inspired by our fellow academic workers represented by UAW, who are fighting to create a UC where everyone can live with dignity in the place they work. We reaffirm our message to President Drake sent on November 11, 2022, with over 1,400 Senate faculty signatures, that urged him to direct his staff to engage in good faith bargaining. We join 100 UC departments, programs, and committees that publicly expressed their support for striking academic workers. They have written letters of solidarity, with some committing not to perform work that the striking workers would normally do.  Groups of faculty have also organized a sign-on letter directed to state leaders and a pledge by faculty who are exercising their right to respect the UAW picket.

The strike has prompted many conversations among Senate faculty members about our rights and responsibilities. At UCLA, the Academic Senate has issued guidance reiterating that faculty are not expected to take on additional labor if they choose not to, and that graduate student workers must not face retaliation for striking. UC faculty with expertise in labor law have also produced a detailed legal memo that explains the HEERA category of “supervisory employee” and reaffirms UC Senate faculty members’ right to respect the UAW picket. CUCFA’s FAQ and one issued by an autonomous faculty organizing group further articulate Senate faculty rights and responsibilities during the strike. The new CUCFA FAQ specifically addresses questions related to grades and grading.

This message and the updated CUCFA FAQ come in response to several notes Senate faculty across the system sent to info@cucfa.org that report being encouraged to take on additional labor to make up for the missing work of ASEs – for example, being asked to proctor exams and help with grading if they are not currently teaching. CUCFA is extremely concerned that such requests, issued under titles such as “Instructional Guidelines for Educational Continuity,” harm faculty interests. These requests increase the instructional workload of already overtaxed and exhausted faculty and ask us to give up our HEERA-protected right not to volunteer to take up struck labor. Further, taking on these tasks would undermine the strike’s impact and falsely communicate to both students and the administration that we can continue to do our jobs without the labor of striking workers.

As stated in the grades/grading FAQ Q1, if you receive one of these messages that suggests you take on additional labor, you can respond by declining the extra work and communicating that you do not wish to volunteer to take up the struck labor. If your department chair or Dean insists that you must perform the additional struck work, you have the right under HEERA to refuse. If you do not feel comfortable doing so, you can state that you are performing the work under protest. You should document all new duties, dates, and time required to perform the work, any agreement on mitigation of the increase in work, how you will be compensated for this increase, and any objections you have, including your physical and mental ability to complete the work. A template response for this email is below. Additionally, you can cc info@cucfa.org or contact your campus Faculty Association, and we can facilitate communication with the appropriate Academic Senate committee or office on your campus.

We recognize that these kinds of administrative requests will disproportionately impact faculty who are untenured or otherwise marginalized in their departments by placing informal pressures on them to cooperate even if they wish to act in solidarity with striking workers by not diminishing the impact of their absence from work. We therefore encourage tenured faculty to exercise their privilege and take the lead by issuing collective statements affirming the rights of UAW strikers and of faculty wishing to respect the picket line and/or not take up struck labor.

CUCFA will be working with campus Faculty Associations to strategize with faculty across departments and academic divisions about how they can feel more empowered to exercise their HEERA-protected rights. Please be on the lookout for this announcement. We invite signatories of the original CUCFA solidarity statement to help us in this outreach. If you would like to help facilitate these conversations in your department, on your campus, or at the statewide level, please reach out to us at info@cucfa.org.

Email template – feel free to modify to your specific circumstances

Dear X,

I am writing in response to your guidance that faculty members facilitate instructional continuity during the strike. I would like to inform you that I am exercising my HEERA-protected right not to  volunteer to perform struck work tied to ASE’s Description of Duties. If this guidance is a directive rather than a suggestion, and you are requiring me to perform this work under discipline or other threat of adverse consequences, I want to register my objection to doing so and state that I understand this to be an unfair labor practice. If this is a directive, please inform me of my new duties, and the dates during which you expect me to perform them. I would also like to know what mitigation measures are available to offset the increase in work and how I will be compensated for this additional labor.

Thank you,

Sign On to the Faculty Association Statement Regarding Possible Strike by UAW 2865, UAW 5810 and SRY-UAW

Please consider signing on to the Faculty Association Statement Regarding Possible Strike by UAW 2865, UAW 5810 and SRY-UAW:

Graduate students, postdocs, and other academic student employees are essential to the teaching and research mission of the University of California, especially as undergraduate enrollments rise. Given the escalating costs of living in California, 48,000 people in the UC system represented by three unions–UAW 2865, UAW 5810, and SRU-UAW–are coordinating their fight for living wages, affordable UC housing, greater support for working parents, sustainable transit benefits, equity for international scholars, and other improvements that would strengthen teaching and research across the University of California. A full list of their demands is available at fairucnow.org.

Negotiations for new contracts with the University of California have not been going well. The UAW has filed more than twenty Unfair Labor Practices (ULP) charges against the University of California, such as failing to respond to requests for basic information and unilaterally making changes to working conditions. The California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) has issued complaints against the university in at least three of those ULPs.

Now, all three unions that represent teaching assistants, tutors, readers, student researchers, postdocs, and academic researchers are voting on whether to strike in response to these ULPs. A strike authorization vote is taking place between October 26 and November 2; if approved, the UAW may call an open-ended strike to begin as soon as November 14.

The Council of UC Faculty Associations calls on the University of California to cease its unlawful behavior, resume good faith negotiations, and settle fair contracts with the unions. We support fair wages and working conditions for academic workers and hope a strike can be avoided. If not, we encourage all Senate faculty to support our fellow academic workers. We remind you of the power of Senate faculty solidarity last year in the UC-AFT lecturers union’s successful campaign for a substantive new contract that inspired academic workers around the country.

Sign on here to show your support for the union efforts and to urge President Drake to settle fair contracts immediately to avoid a devastating strike.

Should UCOP fail to engage in negotiations, The Council of UC Faculty Associations will offer guidelines on faculty rights in the event of a union-sanctioned strike along the lines of those we provided in the face of a potential UC-AFT strike in fall 2021. While the negotiations are ongoing, and before voting concludes, the UAW says faculty can support the student workers in the following ways:

  • Contact University leadership (Chancellor, UCOP, etc.) and demand that they bargain in good faith (template letter available here)
  • Donate to the hardship fund: https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw
  • Discuss with undergraduate students the critical role that academic workers play in the everyday functions of the university

Other suggestions for supportive actions can be found here.

Learn More About Your AFT Benefits

The AAUP’s recent affiliation with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) means that together, they now represent more US higher education workers than any other union. The affiliation also means that in addition to being an AAUP member, UCLA-FA members that choose to add AAUP membership are now AFT members as well, with access to a number of new resources and benefits, including counseling, traveling, educational, and insurance programs.

The AAUP will be hosting a webinar on October 18 at 4 pm ET/1 pm PT where staff from the AFT membership team will walk members through the benefit program. Register here.

AFT member cards are being sent out this fall to home addresses. If you do not have a home address on file, you’ll be asked to supply it in the coming weeks. If you have a question about your AFT membership, please email aftplus@aft.org.

To read more about the affiliation, visit our website. We hope you can attend the webinar!

2022 Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors

The AAUP’s annual Bulletin collects in one place the reports, policy statements, and official AAUP business materials of an academic year—in this case, 2021–22. Most of these documents have already been published on the AAUP website or in Academe, and the parenthetical dates after their titles refer to date of original publication. This year’s Bulletin features a special report on governance, academic freedom, and institutional racism in the UNC system; two academic freedom and tenure investigative reports; a statement on legislative threats to academic freedom; and findings from the 2021–22 Faculty Compensation Survey and the 2022 AAUP Survey of Tenure Practices.

Find out where you stand as a professor in academia. Read the Bulletin!

Preventing Teaching Faculty from becoming Second Class Citizens

An article in today’s Academe Blog by Kris Boudreau and Mark Richman discusses research from The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Becky Supiano about how creating a “teaching track” of faculty can elevate instruction and instruction focussed faculty, but also risks “cementing their second-class citizenship.” The article examines a new tenure track for teaching faculty program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. “The tenure track institutionalizes the university’s respect for [teaching faculty] well beyond providing a set of formal academic titles and adds the critical component of guaranteed academic freedom that is difficult to secure with anything less than tenure… By extending, supporting, and protecting exemplary teaching throughout the institution, it finally places teaching faculty and traditional tenured and tenure-track faculty on equally solid footing.”

Education Gag Orders Attack Academic Freedom

Academe Blog has posted an article by Jennifer Ruth that describes how red state anti-Critical Race Theory laws are both an impingement of freedom of speech — and so will be challenged on First Amendment grounds — but also are direct attacks on academic freedom. “Despite all its old Cold War fear mongering and all its talk of freedom, the Republican Party now harbors a sizable contingent of politicians who are increasingly willing to use authoritarian tactics to get what they want. The legislative bills banning so-called divisive concepts are the biggest assault on academic freedom this country has ever faced.”

Covid-19 Accelerated the Erosion of Academic Governance

The Chronicle of Higher Education has coverage of a recent AAUP report about the surge in unilateral decision-making by governing boards and administrations during the Covid-19 era. The full AAUP report is available online and states: “The COVID-19 pandemic has presented the most serious challenges to academic governance in the last fifty years.” And that faculty were forced to choose between participating “in ad hoc governance processes they knew to be flawed in the hope of shaping their outcomes or refusing on principle to participate at all, thereby allowing administrators and board members to move forward without them.”