Lecturers at the University of California-Davis won an enormous victory in August when a labor board representative affirmed their union's right to negotiate lecturer reappointment policies. The ruling, which is a proposal that goes to the entire California Public Employment Relations Board, came as a result of an unfair labor practice claim the University Council-AFT (UC-AFT) filed more than three years ago.

Administrative Law Judge Fred D’Orazio determined that the university "breached its duty to negotiate" by deciding in November 2000 to unilaterally change the criteria for reviewing and reappointing lecturers after they completed six years of teaching. Under a memorandum of understanding, UC lecturers whose performance was rated excellent after six years could be reappointed for three-year periods if there was a continuing need. In 2000, the university decided to stop making these reappointments, claiming they wanted to shift teaching done by temporary faculty to full-time tenured faculty.    

After repeatedly asking management to discuss the policy change and being rebuffed, UC-AFT, which represents about 300 lecturers at UC-Davis, and 2,700 throughout the UC system, filed its first unfair practice charge in April 2001. It amended the claim after a year of inactivity on the case.  

In his proposed decision, D’Orazio found that the university breached its duty to negotiate under the state's Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act. Also, UC-Davis interfered with the right of lecturers to be represented by UC-AFT and denied UC-AFT the right to represent its members. Somewhat outrageously, the university claimed that the union waived its right to negotiate by not questioning the policy change. The judge stated that the facts clearly showed otherwise.

As a remedy, UC-Davis must allow the seven lecturers who were affected by the policy to have a performance evaluation and be considered for post-six-year appointments.  Upon successfully completing that process, they would be entitled to back pay and benefits.

"The university wanted to get rid of many courses and hire cheaper, newer lecturers and post-docs," says UC-AFT president Bob Samuels.  "The dean at Davis wanted to bring in more star tenured faculty and replace long-term full-time lecturers with research faculty, but she must have known that the money would not be there to do it.  They simply got rid of long-term lecturers, and then did not replace them with enough tenure-track faculty." 

"This is a huge victory for us," said Samuels.  "Non-tenured faculty have been a key element to universities, and these institutions need to accept the reality of the situation they created.   They should honor our faculty and honor our contracts, and if they do not do this, we will use all of our resources to make them treat us in the proper manner."  [Barbara McKenna]

September 10, 2004