WAGES

· Won an extra $19.8 million special wage augmentation from the state in 2000 for non-faculty salaries
· Fought to keep the step/COLA pay system for employees who still have it (which pays higher, less arbitrary raises than the open merit system);
· Put back into employee paychecks money that had been diverted from base wages to the Incentive Award Program several years ago;
· First time in 12 years that exempt RX and HX employees get across the board raises;
· First time HX employees received fixed merit increases that are directly linked to performance rating. In the past management had discretion to grant increases within a range for any particular rating;
· Negotiated many equity increases for a variety of job titles;
· Improvements in the merit pay plan: first ever requirement that UC has to account for how much money is distributed - and if not fully distributed to then disburse it;
· All agreements regarding wages have included retroactive pay.

CONDITIONS AND BENEFITS

· Ended the Casual employment system. Hundreds are being converted to career and temporary employment now has strict guidelines about when management must convert to temps to
· Career. 24-40 hours paid leave annually for training and development;
· Choice of comp time or overtime pay;
· 60 days notice of layoff instead of 30 for RX and TX
· For Staff Research Associate I's a mandatory reclassification review after 2 years employment.
· Ability to accrue more than the maximum vacation if not allowed to take vacation beforehand;
· For HX employees, more premium paid holidays for most, and provisions for a Professional Practices Committee to monitor working conditions and patient care in the Medical Centers.

ON THE LEGAL FRONT

We've won many court battles, including lawsuits which have forced UC to pay time-and-a-half to 8,000 professionals. Millions of dollars in back wages were won by techs after UPTE legally challenged UC's refusal to give a promised wage increase. And most recently we have won an arbitration challenging UC's excessive use and abuse of casuals. This has resulted in the conversion of many casuals to career employees.

POLITICALLY

Successfully lobbied the State to put more money into UC employee salaries. This meant another $19.8 million was put into UC non-faculty staff salaries. UPTE has used legislative pressure on granting agencies to preserve quality research and research jobs. Last year thousands of brochures were sent by UPTE and CWA members to politicians and grantors calling on Congress to make sure UC spends grant money on research staff not bureaucratic overhead.

MEMBER TO MEMBER

We have gone to bat for hundreds of UC employees over the last few years, guiding folks through challenges to unfair evaluations, formal disciplines and the reclassification process.