Wednesday, November 19, 1997
New UC policies will reduce bureaucracy
INFRASTRUCTURE:
Power over staff to increase for individual departmentsBy Brian
Fishman
Daily Bruin Contributor
As of Dec. 19, the Campus Human Resources (CHR) office won’t be
doing business as usual.
New UC policies from President Richard Atkinson’s office will be
implemented to decentralize UCLA operations.
The policies regard salaries, affirmative action and sexual
harassment, but will only affect staff not represented by
unions.
The procedures will give individual departments, as opposed to
the CHR office, a more direct influence over employees to implement
the new policies.
"(The new procedures) will eliminate some unnecessary
bureaucracy," said Gale Winting, associate dean for public
health.
Now, the universities will have more decision-making authority,
said Ruie Arnett, the head of the committee that designed the new
procedures.
"(UC Office of the President) was trying to make it simpler for
the campuses."
Department heads will have more leeway in adjusting employees’
equities and stipends.
Equities are permanent raises given because an employee has
increased duties, market influences dictate higher pay or to create
internal pay equity within the university.
Stipends are temporary compensation to an employee whose duties
increase because another employee is on leave.
The new procedures give managers authority to give up to 15
percent stipends or equities to employees without consulting the
CHR office. Such stipends may last up to a year before the CHR
office must be consulted.
The stipends will affect highly trained administrative employees
rather than temporary workers, said Sandy Rich, a manager from
facilities management.
Consistent with overall decentralization, the new procedures
leave affirmative action to individual departments.
Proposition 209 and the Regents’ decisions have eradicated
affirmative action at the UCs, but this only applies to state
employees. Some moneys at UCLA are under federal control, and the
new guidelines have forced the redesigning of UCLA’s use of these
funds.
According to the new guidelines, UCLA must use "good faith" due
to a statute requiring federal contractors with $50,000 in
contracts and 50 or more employees to develop programs that
encourage minorities and women to apply for jobs. If not, the
contractors will lose federal funding.
The new UC Affirmative Action guidelines state, "Good faith
affirmative action efforts shall be undertaken to recruit minority
and women applicants for those job groups and units where
underutilization has been determined to exist."
The procedures require the Staff Affirmative Action Office
(SAAO) to review work-force demographics and isolate areas where
minorities and women are "underutilized."
If necessary, the SAAO will set "goals" for the recruitment of
women and minorities into the UCLA workplace.
"UCLA will continue its practice of advertising in minority
publications and other media which reach potential female and
minority publications for staff," the new procedures state.
When implemented, the new procedures will formalize sexual
harassment complaint procedures. Supervisors are now officially
responsible for preventing and disciplining an employee when sexual
harassment cases arise, although they have been largely responsible
for this in the past.
A complaint goes through several stages before any action is
taken against an alleged harasser. A complaint is "any written or
oral statement to a university official."
When a complaint is identified, a Complaint Resolution Officer
(CRO) is notified and will speak with the alleged harasser, advise
the individual of his or her rights and offer mediation between the
parties involved in the harassment allegation. If mediation is
unsuccessful, the CRO notifies an administrator, who may take
disciplinary action.