Majority Report: Union Wins in the Trump Era

completely but it doesn’t happen often. So that’s been a real challenge and part of [why we’re so remote] is because of the housing crisis. People can’t afford to live in the cities that they work.” He goes on to explain how essential one-on-one conversations and sometime cold outreach between colleagues is to overcome this challenge. Leila Espinosa from UCLA later adds: “discouraged and think you’re the only one thinking [about unionization] because clearly even within our remote hybrid workforce, we were collectively thinking many of the same things.”

 

In landslide victory, 7,200 UC professionals join United Auto Workers in unionization effort

Nikta Akhavan, a research manager at UC Berkeley who started organizing for the union effort last year, said she was happy with her working conditions and had good relationships with her managers but supported unionization because, she said, “I know not everyone has the same experience as me.”

Service & Solidarity Spotlight: University of California Staff Vote to Join UAW in Landslide Vote

“As the Trump administration continues its assault on workers, it’s never been more important to join the movement of tens of thousands of higher education workers throughout the country who are standing up for social and economic justice at their jobs and in their communities,” said UAW Region 6 Director Mike Miller.

 

Research and public service professionals vote to form new UC union

Leila Espinosa, a project management professional at UCLA, said RPSP-UAW is forming separately from UAW Local 4811 because it represents professional staff rather than graduate student researchers and teaching assistants. “The research and public service professionals really provide a service and really are critical to the mission of the UC in terms of their research and public service mission,” she said.

UC Research and Public Service Professionals Vote to Unionize

Among those celebrating the results is Chris Gifford, a project policy analyst at UC Santa Barbara who works within the Academic Senate, focusing on graduate education and policies related to diversity and equity. Gifford has been at UCSB for a decade, and said the union comes at a time when “higher education in this country is under constant attack from the outside.”

UC RESEARCHERS AND PUBLIC SERVICE WORKERS UNIONIZE

RPSPs perform a broad range of work that UC depends on and the public benefits from, including supporting advances related to pediatric cancer, ending homelessness, space science, and public health. They are responsible for running core facilities, administering grants, data analysis and more. RPSPs cite a range of issues as their reasons for forming a union, from stagnant salaries despite increasing workloads to threats to job security and a lack of transparency in administrative decision-making. In the face of federal funding cuts to higher education, many RPSPs also want a union to gain a stronger political voice.

UC RESEARCH PROFESSIONALS VOTE OVERWHELMINGLY TO UNIONIZE UNDER UAW

“Forming a union has never been more important with higher education under increasing attack. We are joining a movement of research and professional employees in UAW who have been at the forefront of fighting funding cuts and protecting jobs and values in higher education. Many of our closest colleagues at UC are already a part of this movement, and through an incredible organizing effort, we have now gained the same rights and bargaining power as them,” said Deborah Ferguson-Fitch, Research Administrator at UCSF.