By Robert Hennig
As a non-tenured member of the faculty at UCLA, my job is to
teach undergraduate courses. All told, I love my job and have given
my best to approximately five thousand UCLA students. There are
about 400 lecturers like me on UCLA’s campus and together we
teach roughly half of all undergraduate classes.
The last thing we as lecturers want is to hurt our students. The
satisfaction we have in teaching and the relationships we have with
so many remarkable students is what brings us back to UCLA despite
all the frustrations.
Most of us do an excellent job. On the whole we are
conscientious and gifted teachers who truly care about student
learning.
Unfortunately, we are also vastly underpaid relative to other
teachers. Comparably qualified teachers in the Los Angeles Unified
School District or in community colleges often earn fifty percent
more than a lecturer in the UC system. The gap in pay only widens
as you gain experience as a teacher at the UC.
So we are trying to schedule a job action that would minimize
class disruption and loss of learning time. We are striking at
Berkeley this week over the insulting way the UC administration has
handled its bargaining with us. A lecturer’s strike on the
UCLA campus is a real possibility for the fall quarter.
We can no longer ignore the impossible position the UC
administration has put us in. UC lecturers labor with little job
security. The university has told us we are at will employees
for the first six years of our employment, meaning we can be let go
for any reason or no reason at all, no matter how good our teaching
is.
At UCLA we believe many lecturers have not been renewed
purposely to prevent them from gaining any job security or to save
a few thousand dollars in salary. Many of UCLA’s best teachers are
no longer here because UCLA values neither their skill nor their
commitment.
Chancellor Carnesale has refused to become involved in the
lecturer’s negotiations or to authorize substantial
improvements for lecturers that would resolve our endless contract
dispute. Carnesale seems more interested in preserving a broken
system rather than working with us to create a system that benefits
the quality of undergraduate education.
Carnesale’s actions are outrageous. But he reflects the
dismissive attitude so prevalent at each of the campuses. Lecturers
are absolutely necessary to run undergraduate education, yet they
are treated as if they are easily expendable.
Lecturers want to settle a new contract, but we want a fair one.
We are seeking significant changes that not only benefit lecturers
but improve the quality of undergraduate instruction. The UC
administration has sought to maintain a system that hurts both
lecturers and students.
Carnesale and other UC officials have said they do not have the
money for improvements that would cost far less than one tenth of
one percent of the UC budget. This is instructional money that
already has been authorized by the State of California and that a
recent audit of the UC system found to have been laundered by the
administration for other purposes including administration
salaries.
System-wide, UC lecturers authorized striking with almost 90
percent of the vote. As a union, we are actively preparing for job
actions on each of the UC campuses.
All of this has an impact on the quality of undergraduate
education at UCLA. First-rate lecturers leave to teach elsewhere
because on this campus they are not respected and valued.
Undergraduate students suffer by having less capable instructors in
our place. Overworked lecturers cannot devote the time and
attention to each student they would like.
As a student, please understand how much the quality of
lecturers directly impacts your education. The lack of importance
the UC system places on undergraduate teachers signifies the lack
of importance the UC system puts on undergraduate education.
Hennig is a lecturer in the department of political science and
a member of the University Council-American Federation of Teachers
bargaining team for contract negotiations.