September 24 has become the magical date at UC Davis. That is the date of the first day of instruction for the fall quarter. Planned for that day is a faculty walk out that at least 100 UC Davis faculty members have signed onto. At issue there is that they want some of the furlough days to fall on instructional days.
At the same time, last week, UC Davis told its more than 4400 union employees that if they do not accept the furlough they will face layoffs or other reductions.
UPTE argues that UC has unilaterally imposed a new furloughs outside of the collective bargaining process.
Thousands of UC Staff, faculty, and students have been voting on a statewide motion of no confidence that will culminate in a systemwide walkout this Thursday. UPTE has already called for a one-day strike on Thursday over their contentions that the university has engaged in unfair labor practices.
“This ULP (unfair labor practice) strike is a protest against UC’s unilateral implementation of health benefits and transportation increases after our contract expired, Yudof’s attempts to implement furloughs without bargaining any guarantees of job security, the layoff of our elected bargainers, and other examples of bad faith bargaining by UC. We’ve reluctantly been forced to realize that the only way to get movement from real administration decision‐makers is through a strike.”
Moreover UPTE argues:
“Yudof has refused to bargain over budget cuts for state-funded employees. His bargaining team has refused all discussion of alternatives with UPTE-CWA, insisting instead on a blank check to implement layoffs and furloughs.”
The vote of no confidence was dismissed by leaders in the UC system as a “publicity stunt” and a “tantrum.” However, labor unions representing around 70,000 UC employees said they had around 96% signatures from their employees.
A spokesperson for UPTE, Tanya Smith at UC Berkeley said:
“We do not have confidence in the current leadership. The decisions they’ve made have been very detrimental to UC.”
UC Regents along with President Mark Yudof argue that the state cuts to UC which amount to $813 million have forced UC to cut pay, impose furloughs, and lay people off in addition to a proposed 32% tuition increase.
But employees see the world very differently. Employees argue that just $3 billion of the UC’s $19 billion budget comes from the state. However, Yudof says that they are unable to to use non-state funds-which come from research grants and medical fees-to fill the budget gap because that money is committed to purposes other than salaries and general academic needs.
The source of the greatest consternation continues to be the approved raises for campus administrators that came down the very same day as the approved furlough plan.
There are currently eight unions on the UC Davis campus who represent 12 collective bargaining units. Not one of them has signed onto the furlough plan. Under the plan faculty and staff could take up to 26 unpaid days off depending on their salary. That would equate to between a four to ten percent pay cut. For many of these workers, they live paycheck to paycheck.
Moreover, UPTE argues that the university is also imposed a unilateral increase in the cost of health benefits–benefits that they already claimed were unaffordable and inadequate.
According to an information sheet put out by UPTE:
“UC illegally and dramatically increased the health benefits premiums in January 2009 in two ways. First, UC reassessed what pay band employees are in and increased their premiums by as much as 50% if they moved from one pay band to the next. This usually occurred if you salary went from below $46,000/yr in 2007 to over $46,000 in 2008. Second, UC is falsely advertising what the rates are for the Blue Cross insurance costing many $100’s in unexpected premium increases every month. UPTE demands that UC pay these premium increases back retroactively to when they began.”
Now UC Davis has told union employees that if they do not go along with the furlough plan, they will face layoffs and reducations in pay.
Meanwhile Faculty are also looking at a September 24, walkout date.
In an open letter from faculty, they argue that by refusing to hold furloughs on instructional days, UC is seeking to evade public accountability for the manner in which it has managed the budget crisis.
“The implementation of the Regents’ furlough plan—approved on the same day as the President’s emergency powers—was presented to faculty as a process to be worked out at the discretion of each campus. On July 29, the Academic Council, representing the Academic Senates of all ten campuses, voted unanimously for systemwide implementation of at least six instruction—day furloughs over the academic year, with permission for campuses to have up to ten such days.
This recommendation—based on the expressly stated will of the faculty—was summarily rejected by the Chancellors and the Office of the President.
The reason for this unilateral decision is clear: the administration seeks to evade public accountability for the manner in which it has managed the budget crisis. It was the “optics” of the Senate Council’s recommendation that were judged untenable. The Office of the President has failed to arrive at a plan that would protect the interests of both students and workers. It wishes to disguise the harm this failure has done to the University’s mission. Or better: it seeks to shift the blame for this failure to the faculty, should we be so bold as to hold the President accountable to the consequences of his own plan. Toward this evasion, UCOP has flagrantly erased the difference between a furlough and a paycut, presenting the latter in the guise of the former.
The ten Academic Senates unanimously mandated furloughs taken on instructional days for good reasons. These reasons exceed the particular interests of the faculty; they pertain to the collective interests of all workers and students. Instructional furloughs pressure the state to cease defunding the UC system, and they pressure the Office of the President to confront the fact that its overall approach to budget reform is unsustainable and unjust. UCOP seeks to alleviate that pressure by feigning the minimal impact of cuts upon the operations of the University and the education of its students. By doing so it makes clear its real interest: not to engage in a serious reevaluation of budgetary priorities, but to occlude the necessity of doing so.
The University’s “paramount teaching mission,” we are told, justifies the imposition of furloughs on non—instructional days. But the President does not hesitate to fund the budget shortfall through ballooning tuition payments and increased class sizes. The decision on furloughs does not serve to mitigate the effects of these policies; it serves to perpetuate them while dissimulating their effects. We cannot allow either the California legislature or the Office of the President to proceed as though cuts to public education do not have debilitating consequences.”
Executive pay increases have become a lightning rod for the dissenters, a clear marker it seems from their perspective of the misplaced spending priorities of the UC Regents and President Yudof.
The Vanguard has previously reported that a bill presented by Sentator Yudof had been tied up in committee, that would have prohibited pay raises during bad budget years for executives at UC and CUS. SB 86 by Senator Yee would outright prevent CSU from raising executive pay during years when the state gave CSU less money than the year before. The bill would be an advisory to UC since the university has constitutional autonomy. Lawmakers would merely “request the regents to not increase the monetary compensation” of executives when times get tough.
That bill appeared dead until the California Progress Report’s version of the story that also appeared in the Vanguard apparently embarrassed key Democrats in the Assembly unaware of the stall tactics. Now that bill has passed the Assembly by a 77-1 margin and is sitting on the Governor’s desk awaiting a decision.
This week is a critical week then facing UC Davis. With classes opening on September 24 and numerous possible walkouts and a decision to be made by union leadership as to whether to face possible layoffs and other paycuts, this figures to be a critical story to watch in the coming days.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Have any university employees experienced a furlough day to date? Many city employees have agreed to (and have experienced) furlough days as an interim measure, given the economic situation. State workers have experienced furlough days. Have any DJUSD employees experienced pay cuts/furloughs? Or have teachers still going up the pay scale, based on longevity (20 steps), still received their annual 4.25% salary increase?
At first the UC faculty walkout seemed tempting to me. After asking the faculty whether they wanted furloughs on teaching days, UC seemed unable to defend its decision to ignore their answer. But somehow the walkout didn’t feel right. Certainly it doesn’t feel right now, given the pretense of solidarity among groups with contradictory objectives. In the end, the walkout only says that we all hate Yudof because he can’t square the circle. The voters said the same thing about the state legislature in May, and it didn’t really help anything.
It certainly isn’t as simple as hating Yudof for his salary, because there are UC employees who make more than he does, but they haven’t come under fire.
On the weekend I did some word counts of the thousand plus signatures of the faculty walkout petition. The petition has strong representation from departments such as English, theater, psychology, and ethnic studies. Not very many science faculty signed it and fewer still from engineering. In particular, only 5 economics faculty signed the petition from across UC. (As compared with 88 English professors, for instance.)
So maybe the faculty walkout petition is great theater, good prose, good for the psyche, and resonant with civil rights. And maybe it’s also scientifically unsound, poorly engineered, and bad economics.
As for the unions, what they are really doing is choosing layoffs over furloughs. For all the talk of shared sacrifice and living paycheck to paycheck, they want protection for their raises, except for the fraction who get a 100% pay cut. That includes union members who, with seniority and/or overtime, make more than assistant professors who are in line for furloughs.
WHERE IS THEIR ALTERNATIVE? What do they want the UCOP to do? Raise student fees another 50% so they don’t have to take any furlough days? It’s extremely selfish. I call bullsh*t on all of this.
seniority rules really are stupid. Sigh, let the unions win and achieve the cost savings through layoffs rather than furloughs. They really are selfish.
Perhaps the layoffs should start with anyone who failed to be in class on the 24th…
“As for the unions, what they are really doing is choosing layoffs over furloughs. For all the talk of shared sacrifice and living paycheck to paycheck, they want protection for their raises, except for the fraction who get a 100% pay cut.”
Members of the CUE union have received one raise in the last 4 years amounting to around 4% – not even keeping pace with the rise in the cost of living. What raises are you talking about?
I think that the unions are worried that the paycut (that’s what it is, really) will end up being permanent and the University will layoff staff regardless of the staff taking this paycut/furlough. They are trying to get the University to agree that no layoffs of staff will happen if all staff take this paycut. That is shared sacrifice.
Faculty can take their paycut/furlough and then bill that amount to grant funding that they receive. That is why the English, theater, psychology, etc. are major supporters of the walk out (these departments have less access to grants for research, so cannot recoup their loss through grant funds.) So its really the faculty that are not following your idea of shared sacrifice.
It sure is a good thing the unions finally defeated Chancellor Vanderhoef and now food service prices for the undergraduates living in the dorms has doubled. Yes, a good quality, low cost education: that’s what the UC system is all about … or maybe, it’s about high paid workers making education unaffordable to a majority of our brightest children. That makes sense.
[i]Members of the CUE union have received one raise in the last 4 years amounting to around 4% – not even keeping pace with the rise in the cost of living. What raises are you talking about?[/i]
As I understand it, CUE is a particularly weak union that has gotten very little from UC lately. AFSCME has scheduled raises, and I think that the HX unit of UPTE does too.
And by the way, the minimum salary for an UPTE dietician who works for UC Davis was $81K this past year. That is a full professor’s salary, but UPTE is demanding no furloughs.
[i]Faculty can take their paycut/furlough and then bill that amount to grant funding that they receive.[/i]
I don’t know about all faculty, but faculty with NSF grants certainly can’t do that. First, NSF grants pay summer salary that faculty already take in full, and it has a 2-month cap. Second, terms of compensation in the grant are decided ahead of time. There is no way to ask NSF for more compensation to make up for furloughs.
I have an NSF grant and my pay cut is real. NSF grants are not the reason that relatively few mathematics faculty signed the walkout petition.
No, I stand corrected. The UPTE HX contract had scheduled raises for the past three years, but the raises this year are “subject to re-opener negotiations”.
“Furlough” as it is being used in the UC discussion is a misnomer. A “furlough” is [u]time off from work without pay[/u]. What UC is requiring is a pay cut . . . the work requirement stays the same, but the compensation is reduced. If I were a UC student or faculty member I’d be looking for another institution to attend or work for, this one has hit the iceberg, itis broken and is in the early stages of disintegration before finally sinking.
Now they are threatening layoffs (more morale building for the crew). . . the best and the brightest are already headed for the lifeboats . . . within 5 years UC will be only a crumpled shadow of its former self laying on the bottom.
To Mr Rifkin: Have you checked to see what the average salary is for a University food service worker? Why are you picking on the “union” again? Certainly not out of the goodness of Vanderhoef’s heart! How else would these people get a fairer deal?
Yudof and the Bd of Regents made a tactical mistake by giving themselves and top administrators raises. It gave faculty and staff the leverage they needed to make their cause appear more just.
That said, I agree the salaries of the athletic department are shameful, but that does not take away from the fact that the raises of top administrators was shameful. Both are shameful and never should have happened.
I am not sympathetic to faculty who want to take furloughs on instructional days. Students are taking the biggest hit of all, a whopping 32% increase in tuition. Taking frustrations out on students is not the answer.
I also agree that no furloughs will almost certainly equate to layoffs. The unions are going to have to choose their poison. There is only so much money to go around, and students have taken a big enough hit. Push for elimination of administrative pay increases/overly generous athletic dept salaries, and I’m with the unions. Otherwise their position appears to be one of pure self interest at any cost.
[i]Yudof and the Bd of Regents made a tactical mistake by giving themselves and top administrators raises.[/i]
Actually, Yudof and the board of Regents never gave themselves any raises. They also never gave “top” administrators raises as a group. A handful of administrators among the top several hundred got raises.
What is true is that Yudof has to work around the criticism that he lines his own pocket, even though the only change that he ever made to his own salary was to give back 10%.
Meanwhile AFSCME and UPTE have yielded nothing whatsoever, under the slogan of shared sacrifice. They have yielded nothing from their low-paid members, and nothing from their higher-paid members. Now, I personally do not think that they are getting away with murder in their contracts. They are entitled to what they can negotiate; if they choose layoffs over furloughs, that’s their business. What they are not entitled to is dishonesty. Social justice should not require bogus economics.
Anon and staying that way –
“The unions are going to have to choose their poison. There is only so much money to go around, and students have taken a big enough hit.”
I hope students will understand when they need to see their academic adviser to get help with whatever crisis they are trying to work through and can’t because the person was temporarily or permanently laid off.
The students should be supporting the faculty and staff.
“I hope students will understand when they need to see their academic adviser to get help with whatever crisis they are trying to work through and can’t because the person was temporarily or permanently laid off.
The students should be supporting the faculty and staff.”
So what’s the alternative, raise taxes/student fees even more? The taxpayers/students have been hosed. You can’t get blood out of a turnip!
CALL IT: Every amount of money the UC decides to spend or to not spend — and every fee the students are charged or are not charged — should be done in consideration of the mission of the University of California: “to provide a high quality education to elite (top 12%) students at an affordable price.” Every decision which causes the education to become unaffordable or reduces the quality of the undergraduate education, including reducing the quality of the undergraduate matriculates, ought to be avoided. The University was NOT created to provide good jobs to everyone who happens to work on one of the campuses. The University does not exist for its employees, its staff, its administrators, its sports programs, its hospitals or even for its faculty. It exists for the elite students. You might not like that. But that’s why we have the UC. Given that we won’t attract high caliber students if we don’t pay what it takes to attract and retain the best quality faculty, it’s inevitable that UC has to pay some of its employees good money. But it seems to me at a lot of levels there is a lot of waste that is not serving the mission.
This is all about a possible 4 – 10% reduction in pay, instead of layoffs? Unemployment in California is at 12.2%. Income reduction in the private sector is way more than 10% during this recession. It’s a little hard to get this worked up over an across-the-board pay cut (furlough system) that helps preserve jobs.
[i]the mission of the University of California: “to provide a high quality education to elite (top 12%) students at an affordable price.”[/i]
That sounds great, Rich, and you even gave it quotes, but who called that “the” mission of the University? UCOP has a posted mission statement ([url]http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/aboutuc/mission.html[/url]), but it does not have the phrase that you quote here.
Anyway, the real mission of UC is that it should do what it is paid to do. It may be fun for everyone to make up their own version of “the” mission, but in the end money talks. It does not work to say, “I write you a check for heart surgery, but I decided that your mission is to teach students.”
The reality is that the state government is paying a shrinking fraction of UC’s budget. They will not be able to seize control of money that they do not provide.
What I quoted Greg was the mission statement of the UC from my admission to the University when I was a senior in high school. It has changed since then, because the idea of providing an affordable education for all qualified admits has obviously been destroyed.
For what it’s worth, almost all levels of government from the cities up to the federal government have deviated badly their missions by kowtowing to the desires of their contractors and workers, and the result is the mess we have now. The City of Davis was not established in order to provide a great retirement for its employees at age 50 or to enrich companies which do busineess with it. Nor was Yolo County or the State of California. The idea of incorporation in Davis was to have the City provide services that the unincorportated citizens could not adequately provide to themselves. (Fire protection was the prime motivator back in 1917.) Yet today, in order to maintain the very high salaries and high benefits of most City workers, we are cutting back on the services the City provides, making reasonable residents wonder, why be incorporated if the City will no longer provide services?
[quote]The reality is that the state government is paying a shrinking fraction of UC’s budget. [/quote] I don’t know the actual numbers*, but I would be surprised if the real (inflation adjusted) contribution from the State of California to the UC (on a per student basis) was not substantially [u]higher[/u] in the 2008-09 school year (the last academic year we have hard numbers for) than it was in my Freshman year as an undergrad in 1982-83. If I am right, then the reason the “shrinking” is due not to a parsimonious state government but to a voraciously gorging University.
* I challenge you to get those numbers if you think the real problem is the state is not subsidizing a UC education adequately. You might also want to track down how much more you and your fellow members of the faculty cost today (in inflation adjusted dollars) than your predecessors cost.
[i]Income reduction in the private sector is way more than 10% during this recession.[/i]
Don, what are you talking about? Take a look at this economic forecast ([url]http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/sb375/rtac/meetings/040709/californiaeconomicreport.pdf[/url]) from April. Per capita income in California fell by 1.2% in 2008 and it is predicted to fall at that rate for three years before rebounding. This isn’t nearly as big a drop as the 6-9% pay cut for faculty in one year.
No, the hit to the state budget is much larger than the hit to the California economy as a whole.
[i]It’s a little hard to get this worked up over an across-the-board pay cut (furlough system) that helps preserve jobs.[/i]
Yes and no. Some of the union contracts are better than private sector pay for the same jobs. If those unions are faced with a choice between layoffs and furloughs, then it is true that furloughs wouldn’t have much other effect.
For the faculty, things are a little different. Faculty compensation was already below market even for public research universities. It is hardly possible to hire faculty or make retention packages in the face of these furloughs. UC is basically inviting 10% or so of its faculty to go away. They are quite open about retiring and exporting faculty, from Nobel laureates on down, as the way to put an end to the furloughs. In any case, the furloughs force that ending.
In the short term, that won’t affect jobs much either. You could even call it economical to give away UC’s prestige. In the long term, it could have serious economic consequences.
[i]What I quoted Greg was the mission statement of the UC from my admission to the University when I was a senior in high school.[/i]
Or in any case, a mission statement written by somebody, as you remember it. Absent a citation, it’s hard to know what to make of it.
[i]I challenge you to get those numbers[/i]
Rich, here is a prominently displayed ([url]http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/budget/?page_id=126[/url]) chart from UCOP:
[img]http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/budget/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/state_funds.jpg[/img]
This is a chart of inflation-adjusted components of student funding per UC student in selected years since 1990. The three components are the state compact, student fees, and from an internal subsidy. Yes, UC has a lot of other revenue, but not to teach students.
The total has gone down substantially in the past 20 years.
The same goes for faculty salaries. The academic salary scales are here ([url]http://www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/historic.html[/url]) and here ([url]http://www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/tab0809/tabcont.html[/url]). The main table is Table 1, “Professor Series, Academic Year”. After adjusting for California’s inflation rate, faculty at the same seniority were paid more in 1995 than they were in 2008.
Frankly, it makes little sense for you to keep saying that you don’t know the numbers, that you’re confident that it’s this way or that way, and that you challenge everyone else to figure out if you’re right. You should stick to what you find out for yourself.
“The University was NOT created to provide good jobs to everyone who happens to work on one of the campuses.”
Statements like this is a knife to the heart of every staff member who works their butt off while making less than $35K per year. 4% may not be a big deal to you, but it is the equivalent of putting food on the table or being able to own a car or paying for rent, etc.
At the same time that the University is having to cut pay for these lower paid workers (sharing the pain?), there is talk of them having to start contributing more for other benefits (health, etc.)
There is no greed here.
Rich, you are starting to sound like Rush Limbaugh. Put a little more thought into what you say.
Greg, check out the economic forecast (pdf file) here:
[url]http://www.laedc.org/reports/[/url]
You can see the trends in various sectors of the economy. Overall, education and government are holding up well. Retail sales are expected to drop 12% statewide this year, on top of the decline in late 2008. Construction industry is a disaster. 6 – 9% pay cut for faculty and staff, though certainly not desirable, sounds better to me than the kind of unemployment rates that are affecting all non-public sectors.
[quote]Frankly, it makes little sense for you to keep saying that you don’t know the numbers… [/quote]You want me to say I know the numbers when I don’t know them? Talk about making no sense. I still don’t know the numbers I thought you would provide [i]going back to the 1982-1983 academic year.[/i] When you pick out a few years and show a trend, it’s certainly possible that those are outliers. I don’t know if they are outliers. I am only saying that is possible. Now you will attack me for saying I don’t know what the numbers are. Have at it, brother.
[quote]Statements like this is a knife to the heart of every staff member who works their butt off while making less than $35K per year. [/quote]This is complete nonsense. Your statement makes it sound as if the UC for those employees is a monopsonist. It’s not. [quote] Rich, Put a little more thought into what you say. [/quote] In other words, change your opinion, Rich. What a blow-hard you are, telling me I ought to share your piddly little opinion.
Me: “Rich, put a little more thought into what you say.” Rich: What a blow-hard you are….your piddly little opinion.”
Boy, you sure are not listening – not even to yourself.
[i]Retail sales are expected to drop 12% statewide this year, on top of the decline in late 2008.[/i]
Don, it says in the same paragraph “Total personal income will drop by 2% in 2009”. Taxable retail sales is only one sector of the California economy. Likewise the state budget is only one sector of the “government and education overall”.
If your entire income happens to be in proportion to taxable retail sales, then on average you’ve taken a 12% hit. Then, sure, that’s a bigger hit than what is expected from UC faculty — although unlike for faculty, it’s also less work. But that’s not the private sector as a whole. UC faculty are clearly doing worse than average.
And I’m not going to belly-ache about not being able to food on the table. What is true is that UC will give away prestige to other states for years, because that’s the only way out of the crisis.
[i]You want me to say I know the numbers when I don’t know them?[/i]
Rich, it’s certainly positive to admit what you don’t know. The problem is that you talk as if you don’t need to know the numbers, it’s just up to everyone else to check your speculations. Certainly in the case of faculty salaries, the pay scale is posted for every year from 1995 to 2008. The numbers are not cherry-picked. I doubt that that is what UCOP did either; the chart just has a five-year spacing.
[i]Statements like this is a knife to the heart of every staff member who works their butt off while making less than $35K per year.[/i]
Ryan, on this point Rich is correct. You won’t make good sense of this issue just with hyperbole and social justice. As far as I can see, a unionized UC janitor gets a much better deal than, for instance, a residential house cleaner. I agree that UC janitors aren’t rich, and I’m not going to call them loafers or thieves. But if their salaries are already good compared to what other janitors are paid, then it’s a big mistake to talk about “knives through hearts”. It becomes a distraction from what UC is paid to do. Besides, when ordinary Californians pay $10 an hour for housecleaning, with no job security and no benefits, are they monsters?
The state’s share of the cost of UC has been going down since Reagan was governor. Before that there was no tuition cost at UC. The problem for UC is that the republicans in the legislature believe that the only function for government is to protect people from criminals. As such, the Republicans found during Jerry Brown’s time as Governor that being tough on crime was a winner so now we have prisons sucking up 10 billion a year in state money at the expense of education.
The cost of food issue is poking around the margins. Compared to the increases in tuition food is a minor additional cost. Going after low paid workers may be fun for you but by doing so you are trivializing the real blow to students who are forced out by lack of finances or leave with too much debt, these increase in tuition that offset the state giving more to prisons at the expense of all its other obligations.
these increses
[quote]the pay scale is posted for every year from 1995 to 2008. The numbers are not cherry-picked. [/quote]Look, if I was wrong, I’m perfectly willing to concede that point. I’m not wedded to one side of an issue. All I am saying is that I did not know the numbers and I still don’t. I would like to see a year-by-year accounting of them from the early 1980s to the present. (I concede that it was idiotic of me to say “I challenge you” to present them. Sorry.) If the numbers show I was wrong — and I again concede that the three year set you linked to suggests quite well I probably was — I’ll admit I was wrong. I would still like to see the full data (in nominal dollars per year).
The problem with a few years of the data and nothing in between is that the end points of that can be misleading. Just for example, the 1990-91 and 2000-01 “period” shows nearly a standstill (~90% in real dollars) state contribution. After 2000-01, it looks like there was a great drop-off in state dollars per student. Yet if the trend really began in 1990 or before, then maybe 2000 was a blip.
[quote]The cost of food issue is poking around the margins. Compared to the increases in tuition food is a minor additional cost.[/quote]No doubt. But equally doubtless is that massively raising the prices for food services in addition to all of the other increases just makes a UC education all that much more unaffordable. [quote] Going after low paid workers may be fun for you … [/quote] Why such dishonest ad hominem rhetoric? Is your argument that weak? I have not gone after anyone. My intention is to try to make it possible for kids who come from families with no money, like I did, be able to afford a first rate UC education at a very low cost, like I did. Food service workers and others who have very transferable skills to all kinds of other employers should be paid no higher than other employers in the private market would pay them. Charging the students more defeats the purpose of a public education. [quote]… but by doing so you are trivializing the real blow to students who are forced out by lack of finances or leave with too much debt, these increase in tuition that offset the state giving more to prisons at the expense of all its other obligations.[/quote] What? You, a pro-worker, anti-services guy don’t want your union prison guards to retire at full pension at age 50? How positively Regressive of you. You’ll be drummed out of the SEIU.
Greg: “…retail sales, then on average you’ve taken a 12% hit. Then, sure, that’s a bigger hit than what is expected from UC faculty — although unlike for faculty, it’s also less work.”
Hmmmmm…..
The current economic recession and the state budget crisis are having effects across the entire job market. Most of my customers are public employees, and I understand that it is very nerve-wracking and frustrating to be facing pay cuts. I just want to make the point that this problem is not unique to public employees. It is a very difficult time for everyone.
In private business the recession is resulting in reduced benefits, RIF’s and layoffs, and reduced take-home pay for owners. The job losses at private employers have been staggering in California. Certain industries are very badly affected, with construction hurting worst of all.
Public employers have not reduced staff nearly as much. In some cases they have suggested the option of reduced pay in order to preserve jobs. Private employers usually won’t do that. When DJUSD made that proposal, it went nowhere. UC appears to be implementing it unilaterally, which must be frustrating to the unions who are accustomed to participating in these decisions.
But I don’t think that UC has much choice. The funding is a shrinking zero-sum pie, if you’ll pardon my mix of metaphors. Taxes are not going to be raised. There is no other source of income for UC that can be used for payroll costs, to my knowledge. We had a blog post a week or so ago about the draconian fee increases students will be facing. If they don’t reduce labor costs, those fee increases will have to be even more sizable.
I understand that it is exasperating that some of the administrative pay has been increased, but overall it appears that UC is trying to avoid layoffs, minimize fee increases, and keep the harm to UC’s reputation to a minimum in the face of an extremely challenging budget situation. Universities all over the country are faced with similar problems, albeit not to this degree.
The point is, everyone is facing major economic stress. Trying to spread the burden out makes nobody happy, but is probably the best way to minimize the harm to individuals and to the institution.
I imagine the discrepancies in income reductions that Don and Greg are referencing will work themselves through in the next couple of years. The 2008 data that Greg references would show very little impact from reductions at state and local governments and school systems, and almost none from higher education. Further, many layoffs from those type of institutions come with a few weeks or months of salary and benefits, further mitigating any income loss to date (don’t forget about those benefits, UCD employees – furloughed employees keep them, laid off employees lose them). I wouldn’t suggested that furloughs resulting in 4 – 10% lost income are not painful or real, but I think that most UC employees will feel pretty good on a relative basis about that level by the time 2010 ends.
The pain is very real, and much more substantial for many private employees and small businesses. While I do agree w/ Greg that the UC system is likely to fall behind on a national scale, the same is true for CA as a whole – we are becoming a much less desirable place for people and business to choose.
While I agree in part with Don Shor, I think there are two mitigating/ aggravating factors.
First, you want to raise people’s ire and suspicion, treat executives differently or appear to treat them differently from other workers.
Second, is the question of the pots of money. Is UC sitting on resources that are not being utilized or is this a situation once again where money is not all created equal. A good answer to those two points would help a lot.
I guess I would add a third one, who should have to pay for the bulk of the problems. From my standpoint, it always seems like the weakest get it stuck to them and the strongest and richest get off aye-okay.
[i]I understand that it is exasperating that some of the administrative pay has been increased[/i]
Let’s be precise about this. People have pounced on the fact that any administrators have seen any pay increase, to talk as if they have all seen a pay increase. In this year of furloughs, administrators as a group have seen bigger furloughs and smaller pay cuts than other groups. Even most of the bare handful of raises have been smaller than the furloughs.
The truth is that many UC employees and students are eager to resent the administrators. They are eager to distort the record to maximize resentment. Appeasement from Yudof lasts about two minutes, and then the anger comes back.
[i]First, you want to raise people’s ire and suspicion, treat executives differently or appear to treat them differently from other workers.[/i]
Yes, “appear” is a good word for it. The executives take bigger pay cuts, but they appear to take smaller pay cuts. That’s the way it appears, because that’s what the critics want to see.
[i]I imagine the discrepancies in income reductions that Don and Greg are referencing will work themselves through in the next couple of years.[/i]
They sure will. It’s simply important to explain how, and it might well take longer than two years. There is a story out there that this is all about shared sacrifice; the only question is how to share it. It’s bad that the faculty get pay cuts, but hey, students and janitors suffer even more.
This story is missing something important. Namely, that the furloughs will sink UC’s prestige until they disappear. No hiring, no retentions, and a general goal to shrink faculty. Yes, to some extent most of California is doing this. But UC faculty are being invited to leave faster than the state average.
UC executives, who are mostly academics, are getting the same message: Take any outside offer, because the median is too rich for California.
This thread certainly supports Ralph Nader’s observation concerning the tragic loss of the electorate’s ability to imagine an alternative to the no-solution condition that we find ourselves in. We appear to be firmly stuck in this model as if it was immutable. His new book,”Only The Rich Can Save US” attempts to imagine an alternative paradigm that is potentially just as real.
Greg: “UC executives, who are mostly academics, are getting the same message: Take any outside offer, because the median is too rich for California.”
Just out of curiosity, Greg, where are they going? A quick google search finds similar budget problems in state universities in Arizona, Georgia, Washington, and Utah, and I’m aware that University of Hawaii is also having a budget crisis. Are the faculty and administrators all leaving public-sector colleges and universities? Is there a glut of qualified personnel applying at private colleges?
” People have pounced on the fact that any administrators have seen any pay increase, to talk as if they have all seen a pay increase.”
It’s the failure to learn the lesson of Wall Street.
[i]Just out of curiosity, Greg, where are they going?[/i]
UC executive compensation is so far below market that even a public university with a budget crisis could easily poach UC’s executives. For example, suppose that UIUC fired their scandal-plagued Chancellor, Richard Herman, and decided to do to us what we did to them. Here is a salary comparison:
UIUC Chancellor Herman: $475K
UIUC Provost Katehi: $356K
UC Davis Chancellor Katehi: $400K
UC Davis Provost Lavernia: $267K
Let’s say that UIUC, in the throes of a hypothetical crisis, cut the chancellor’s salary by 10%. Then they could still offer Lavernia 60% more than what he makes now, and that’s not counting his 10% furlough.
Or let’s take your example of Georgia with its “similar budget problems”. UGA President Michael Adams made $595K last year. So suppose that he retired. If they liked Linda Katehi’s work at UC Davis, they could give her a 30% raise for the same job at UGA, and still save 10%, again not counting her 10% furlough.
[i]It’s the failure to learn the lesson of Wall Street.[/i]
No, Vincente, it’s a failure to learn the lesson of Petroleos de Venezuela. Replace the entire management roster with hacks who are paid like assistant professors, and then for a while you’ll be very popular.
Where will they go?
Former Social Sciences Dean Steven Sheffrin has taken a new position at Tulane as head
of an institute there. He is an outstanding scholar.
UCD will lose many more like him in the years to come.
One notable example is the University of Michigan. UM’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, is paid $783K, which is almost twice as much as Linda Katehi. With Katehi’s 10% furlough, it’s more than twice as much. The Michigan math department also hired away a really good member of our department with a huge raise, and last year they hired I think four mathematicians, including my brother-in-law.
Basically, the University of Michigan is free to bid for anyone at UC who it wants, executives or faculty.
Admittedly it’s not a fair fight, because you also have to consider Michigan’s roaring economy.
“Basically, the University of Michigan is free to bid for anyone at UC who it wants, executives or faculty.
Admittedly it’s not a fair fight, because you also have to consider Michigan’s roaring economy.”
To compare U of Michigan to UCD is like comparing apples and oranges. U of MI is considered to be almost an ivy league school. Furthermore, just because someone is paid big bucks, does not necessarily make them more qualified for the job. Thirdly, the UC system needs to live within its means. If that means we have to hire “less qualified” people, so be it. But my guess is what you are talking about is “prestige”, an elusive term that has a nebulous def’n. Katehi is considered top notch bc why? She went to MIT? MIT has had its share of scandals, like any other big university. In fact, in the private sector, I have heard some say they won’t hire from MIT, bc graduated students from there are not very practical – too steeped in theory with little common sense. I think the UC system needs to get back to its central mission, as the taxpayers see it – teaching students.
[i]To compare U of Michigan to UCD is like comparing apples and oranges. U of MI is considered to be almost an ivy league school.[/i]
Although it’s true that I gave examples from UC Davis, the real comparison is between Michigan and all of the University of California. The University of Michigan does not have the same historical reputation as Berkeley, not even close. It is about tied with UCLA. But because of the salary cuts, Berkeley and UCLA have both been laid open to the University of Michigan, faculty and executives alike.
And UC Davis has been laid open to Michigan State, faculty and executives alike. Again, their historical reputation is about tied.
UC faces the depressing prospect that in 10 or 20 years, these will all be “apples and oranges”. Berkeley vs Michigan? Unfair comparison, because Michigan is almost Ivy League. UC Davis vs Georgia Tech? Unfair comparison, because they’re rich and we’re not. UCLA vs UT Austin? Unfair comparison…
[i]Thirdly, the UC system needs to live within its means. If that means we have to hire “less qualified” people, so be it.[/i]
Let’s be very clear: It means that we have to let faculty get bought out by other states before we hire anybody. The furloughs mean that we shrink before we hire. Of course, these other universities could be stupid about who they think are our best people. But they just might get it right. For instance, the Nobel Prize could be a useful clue.
[i]Katehi is considered top notch bc why?[/i]
She has been described as top notch by people who want to emphasize the positive. I respect her; she has accomplished a lot as a faculty member and as an administrator. But her salary isn’t top notch and I don’t know that she is either.
[i]I have heard some say they won’t hire from MIT[/i]
I agree. I look at a guy like Andrew Viterbi ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Viterbi[/url]), and I think, what has that guy done that’s truly practical? I also don’t like to buy Napa wines, because their grapes are a bit sour.
[i]I think the UC system needs to get back to its central mission, as the taxpayers see it – teaching students.[/i]
I’m sure it will. The question is who will do the teaching.
Its not just abstract. I was talking with a specialist at UC Davis Med Center the other day and he was lamenting how some of the best people are leaving there too.
An interesting question is why are these other institutions able to fund their programs and we are not?
[i]An interesting question is why are these other institutions able to fund their programs and we are not?[/i]
It’s the magic of the state proposition system.
Supermajorities, term limits, life in prison, a K12 spending floor, committed taxes, bogus property assessments. It’s a fiscal train wreck, and almost none of it protects higher education.
“An interesting question is why are these other institutions able to fund their programs and we are not?”
Because CA is wasteful. It funds many, many services other states do not provide. Where I used to live, there was no yard debris pick-up, for instance. At one point, CA was providing a college education free of charge. Don’t you think we are paying for this largesse now? CA provides much more welfare services to low income than just about any other state. CA is beginning to learn the hard way it cannot be all things to all people.
I’m not sure that by definition funding programs that other states don’t provide makes California wasteful. Perhaps the other states are negligent. There is waste in California but I’m not sure it is found in the services it provides. In fact, California actually to a large degree puts a huge burden on county government to provide a lot of services that other states provide.
“I’m not sure that by definition funding programs that other states don’t provide makes California wasteful. Perhaps the other states are negligent.”
I don’t think so. It is a matter of priorities. CA has chosen to go the route of being everybody’s big brother, and as a result, low income flock to this state to take advantage of the generous welfare services. Other states are not as generous bc they recognize they cannot be all things to all peoples. There is a reason CA is the state that it costs the most to live in. Do we really need a separate yard debris pick-up?
You started out by talking about waste, now you are talking about priorities. You have also suggested that other states are not as generous, that’s perhaps not even a true statement. Nowhere do you quantify your beliefs here, so it makes it difficult to evaluate in an objective manner.
What does California spend per capita and how does it compare to other states?
What are you spending priorities?
What programs do you consider wasteful?
Let’s lay the cards on the table otherwise we are simply arguing with rhetorical devices.
“What does California spend per capita and how does it compare to other states?”
I have no idea, but what I do know is the price of housing in CA is about the most expensive in the entire country. I can guesstimate that is the result of high taxes, especially since I know our state’s sales tax is about the highest in the country of all 50 states.
“What are you spending priorities?”
Top priority is education – but I also think there is a lot of waste going on in education (as well as in other areas of gov’t). For instance, since 2006 administative positions making more than $200,000 in the UC system have nearly doubled – a total of $40,000,000 of additional administrative costs. What are we getting for this additional cost? Not very much I suspect. Did we really need a new stadium at UC Davis? I don’t think so. Did we really need a new stadium at DHS? I don’t think so, especially bc I suspect we could have worked something out with UCD to use Toomey Field. Proponents of the renovations will say that was not possible – but interestingly enough we are being allowed to use Toomey Fields during DHS stadium renovations. We certainly did not need the consultant services of Total School Solutions, which did nothing for us except drain money from schools. We built elementary schools that were not needed, so we ended up closing Valley Oak. Facilities money that could have gone for renovating DHS stadium/Emerson Junior High. We are expending $70,000 a year on a salad bar for our elementary school kids, yet still are feeding them junk food like nachoes, corn dogs and the like.
“What programs do you consider wasteful?”
See discussion above. Add to that high prison guard salaries; high UC Davis administrative salaries; high UC athletic coach salaries; yard debris pick-up; ridiculously high firemen’s salaries; GATE; medical care for illegal immigrants (altho I recognize the federal gov’t says CA must pay for it); needle exchange programs; AIDS aid, which perpetrates the continuation of the disease; UC counseling centers; stage technician teachers at DHS; and the list goes on.