CALL TO ACTION!!! Striking UC Clericals in CA NEED YOUR HELP!!!!

[UCLA Dem]

Hey DU, we need your help. My union, the clerical workers' union for the University of California (CUE (http://www.cueunion.org)has gone on an economic strike.

The UC Regents have not giving us a cost of living increase in 2 years and refuse to abide the agreed third party fact finding mission that says UC has the money to pay its clericals. Still they refuse, even though clericals are about 22% underpaid and cost of living, health care premiums and parking has risen.

I have seen NO MEDIA COVERAGE of this because of the Michael Jackson saga. WE NEED TO GET THE MEDIA, ESPECIALLY HERE IN CA TO COVER THIS NOW!!!! Please help in any way you can. Lets get the DU Media Blaster going!!!!

[Dora]

1. Fight on!

From a fellow clerical worker in the University of Texas System.

[Moochy]

2. Strike Coverage on SF Bay Area Media

They covered it extensively on cbs channel 5 news in SF last night.

Sorry to hear of the UC strike news blackout down south. :( News up here was about 1/3 devoted to the MJ coverage. (I timed it) 9 minutes /30 for the CBS affiliate.

A friend of mine works at UC Berkeley in the same union.
Even FOX news, channel 2 Oakland (probably the most liberal local fox newscast in the country ? :)) covered the strike too.

[Cleita]

3. I worked at UCLA as a temp for 18 months back when the

unions were soliciting members. This was the early eighties. At that time UC employees received very generous benefits and automatic COL raises. The UCLA supervisor I worked under then thought that the way the union was getting a foothold there was a mistake. She was a Democrat too.

As it happened, She was right. The first department to have union members was the Campus police, who did not get their COL raise when the rest of the departments did. Once the union took over, what was once an automatic raise, had to be bargained for, as well as benefits because union members no longer fell under the rules of the rest of the employees.

Now, before you flame me, I am very pro union, and maybe this was the right thing to do in the long run. With a series of Republican politicians legislating the UC system, it could have only meant that the benefits and raises that were once taken for granted would be chipped away at as well. So I do wish the clerical union good luck with their fight.

My point though right now is to make sure you have the right guns behind you. If the union becomes wishy washy about the reasons you pay them dues, it's time to light some fire under their feet as well. This was the point that my supervisor made. She thought that this particular union organization was more interested in dues than in preserving what, in fact, the workers already had.

She said if they had been, they would have negotiated a better contract starting this to begin with, like insuring the workers kept the benefits and COL raises they already had. So, but this is water under the bridge, now it's time to keep the unionization of UC workers and time for the union to pull it's weight behind the workers and time for the workers to put the union on notice about fighting for their benefits. There are other unions who wouldn't hesitate to take over.