Staff at UC are coming together to address the serious threats we’re facing as an institution and gain a stronger voice to protect our critical work and our livelihoods. Those of us working in research and public service at UC are experiencing sudden pauses to our projects, uncertainty about future support of our programs, confusing communication from the administration and a disregard for staff input. We are reaching out to you and other staff in similar job titles to take action together to protect our research and public service work.
Take Action to Protect Research!
For months, we’ve been speaking to colleagues about our working conditions and found many issues in common. But as these issues escalate in urgency with the barrage of attacks on higher education, we need real bargaining power and a say over decisions that affect our lives and the work we care about. That’s why we are forming our own union of over 8,000 Research and Public Service Professionals.
Staff across UC have been inspired by the recent decision of 5,000 Student Service and Advising Professionals to form a union with UAW. We are joining with them, as well as UAW 4811, to protect research and public service programs at UC.
Just this week, UAW coordinated with Attorneys General around the country to file litigation against the NIH cuts to indirect costs, which successfully halted funding freezes that would have threatened many of our jobs and/or ability to do research. Your participation in this movement is essential in order to protect and improve our jobs. Together we can do more to fight back against the chilling effect on research and public service here at UC.
In solidarity,
Leila Espinosa, Project Management Professional, UCLA
Austin Edwards, Bioinformatics Programmer, UCSF
Nikta Akhavan, Project Policy Analyst, UCB
Aaron Brown, Research and Development Engineer, UCSD
Elise Hellwig, Computational and Data Science Research Specialist, UCD
Michael McCormack, Research Data Analyst, UCLA
Erika Solberg, Research Administrator, UCSC
David Glaser, Aerospace Engineer, UCB
Deborah Ferguson-Fitch, Research Administrator, UCSF
Ta-Chung Ong, Research and Development Engineer, UCLA
Sean Buchanan, Research Administrator, UCSF
Emily Jacobson, Project Policy Analyst, UCB
Lee Einhorn, Research Administrator, UCSF
Stephen Ma, Research Data Analyst, UCLA
Joslyn Polzien, Research Administrator, UCSF
Elliott Housman-Turrubiate, Project Policy Analyst, UCD
Jessica Stevermer, Research Administrator, UCLA
