February 13, 2014
Dear Colleague,
I’m writing to be sure you have accurate information about UC’s most recent contract proposals to your union, AFSCME. This past Monday, the union leadership turned down yet another excellent offer and moved us all closer to a strike. We want you to have all the facts, since these developments directly affect you and your colleagues.
We believe you deserve the opportunity to vote on these offers.
Here is some of what was included:
- A 16% wage increase over four years for service workers, plus a $350 per employee ratification bonus, and 20% increase over four years for patient care technical staff. This includes across-the-board increases that everyone would receive plus an annual 2% in regular step increases that most employees would receive and which AFSCME insisted upon.
- No rate increases in Kaiser and Health Net benefit premiums to protect take-home pay for our lower-paid employees in paybands 1 and 2. An individual enrolled in Kaiser would continue to pay $11.78 a month and a family would pay $35.21 a month, substantially less than what service workers at CSU and other state agencies pay at $149 for an individual and $392 for a family.
- Per AFSCME’s request, the same pension formula as UPTE and CNA. AFSCME members would contribute 9% of pay. UC previously proposed alternatives in which workers contribute as little as 5%, which AFSCME rejected.
- Revised retiree health eligibility rules. In addition, UC would freeze Kaiser retiree benefit premiums.
- Per AFSCME’s request, more job protections from layoffs and from the use of outside contractors, securing work for current employees.
To get the facts about what we’ve offered, please visit ucal.us/servicefacts and ucal.us/pctfacts.
We have urged AFSCME to let you vote on these offers instead of asking you to support another costly strike, which will cost about $10 million each day it goes on. These strikes place a severe strain on the financial picture of the operations where patient care and service employees do their jobs. These are the facts – you deserve the opportunity to vote for the security of a contract, instead of the instability and chaos of another strike.
Sincerely,
Dwaine Duckett
Vice President of Human Resources