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Another message from President Yudof appeared just a short while ago. The Regents officially declared a financial emergency for the University and approved President Yudof's furlough plan pretty much exactly as he presented it to them. The budget impasse has resulted in the state now failing to honor some other financial obligations to the University beyond the existing $800M funding loss, so now we're up to somewhere near $1.1 billion in shortfall. President Yudof listened to what us little people had to say and did his best to craft a proposal that would spread the pain out as much as possible, and it seems the Regents agreed with the strategy. The plan goes into effect on Sept. 1st for non-represented employees, and the University will start negotiating with the union reps and urge them to accept the plan as well. Much to my dismay, our union is shrieking even louder about how unfair all this is, complaining about how a lot of the clericals aren't even state-funded so why should they suffer, that the whole financial emergency has been wildly overstated, and that UC has a lot of unrestricted funds they could divert to give us fairer salaries. Same talking points they've been spewing ever since they replaced AFSCME, only louder and more shrill. I sent them a message too, encouraging them to accept the furlough proposal and thus reduce the risk of harsher cuts down the road, but obviously the idea isn't even in the leadership's minds right now. Yes we are underpaid compared to other clerical workers, and perhaps there are indeed some not-entirely-legal shenanigans going on with UC's finances, but I think our union leadership likes to conveniently forget the very comprehensive health and retirement packages we enjoy, not to mention the relaxed dress code and an abundance of vacation and sick leave. Personally I'm willing to accept a lower salary so long as these privileges remain in place. But the union seems dead-set on clinging violently to their position and making us all look like a bunch of greedy whiners in front of the non-represented employees and the rest of the people of California. The whole point of this plan is to spread the pain out as thinly as possible over as many employees as possible, so that nobody has to suffer even more punishment as a result of the meltdown. If we aren't willing to make a concession now, either the non-represented employees will be punished more to compensate, or we'll be forced into even harsher concessions down the road. So even if we did manage to preserve our salaries we wouldn't make too many friends among the workers who had to suffer more; they'll see us as greedy and not caring about the health of the University as a whole, and frankly I think they'd be right in their sentiments. That would not be good for the union membership or its political standing (such as it is). So it seems I'm officially in disagreement with my union's stance, but with very little power to do anything about it except relate my embarrassment to my boss and hope that saner voices will prevail. It's sad that the University seems more inclined to listen to me than the union is. Sometimes I wonder if the union people actually do care about the University, or if the only thing they give a damn about is their own pocketbooks. *sigh* Idiots. Tags: budget, day job
Current Mood:  angry
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Got an official communique from the UC President's office today regarding the financial clusterfuck. The shortfall for the University system now stands at $800 million. They jacked up student fees to help compensate but this will only cover about $211 million of that. Three different furlough/pay cut options are on the table, and those will cover roughly another $195 million, but that still leaves another $394M that the campuses will have to cover somehow. The current furlough/cut proposals all do essentially the same thing: cut everybody's pay by 8% for the next fiscal year. First option just cuts everybody's pay by 8%, second option has everybody take 21 unpaid days off (some of which were previously paid holidays), and the third option does a little of both (3.4% + 12 unpaid). If your income is below a certain threshold these requirements are cut in half so you only lose about 4% of your pay. Of the three, the first option seems the one most likely to be implemented since it involves the least amount of wrangling in payroll and wouldn't interrupt teaching, research or any other campus operations. The options involving unpaid days would also affect retirement credit and present issues with the Fair Labor Standards Act that would have to be resolved somehow. No mention of how this affects our healthcare, so apparently that issue's not on the table (which is good, because I couldn't afford to pay the whole thing on my own :P ). Personally I'd prefer the unpaid days option since I could take the downtime and do commission work to make up the difference, but at this point all I can do is wait and see how this pans out. Regardless of what the nature of the cut ends up being, I still face the same problem: losing a couple hundred dollars worth of income at the exact moment when my monthly bills are going to go -up- a couple hundred due to car payments. I'll have to see if there's anything more I can knock out of the budget. :/ Tags: day job
Current Mood:  cynical
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