Past Activities of the SCFA
In 1991-92, merit increases to faculty coming up for merit increases during that year were arbitrarily denied by the Administration as a cost-saving tactic. At a time when the Statewide Academic Senate was supine and the administration showed no intention of ever paying the merit increases, the SCFA–through CUCFA–filed a complaint against the university administration before the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) on the grounds that the university failed to consult either the SCFA or the Council with respect to the university’s denial of merit pay for the period January 1-June 30, 1992.
All the lawyer’s fees in the PERB complaint, and they were considerable, were paid exclusively by the SCFA. Much of the research for the PERB suit was conducted by CUCFA’s Executive Director in consultation with members of the SCFA board. Although the SCFA’s suit was not itself successful (the court found against the SCFA on a technicality in late 1993), that action contributed substantially to the success of the later suit that did succeed both in recovering the merit increases for that year and in establishing the illegality of the Administration’s ever taking any similar action of arbitrary denial of salary increases in the future.
* The SCFA’s lawyer for the PERB hearing had engaged in detailed discovery and was able to help the lawyers in the later suit that was successful.
* The argument advanced in the successful suit had its origins in discussions between the SCFA and the Council.
* The further argument that was successful in reducing the lawyers’ fees from 25% to 19.5% was devised by a member of the SCFA.
Some years ago, upon the death of a local faculty member, the Association became aware that the rules for benefits for widows and surviving children of faculty had been altered without any consultation. The Association negotiated the restoration of the original system of benefits.
When the university administration unilaterally eliminated a favored health plan from the range of opportunities available to all UCSC employees, the SCFA protested the grievance through legal channels, employing its own lawyer and secured a new, acceptable, and cheaper plan for the campus; the administration paid the association $6000 in penalties, which the association distributed to all Senate faculty affected by the change in the campus policy.
During 1995, the SCFA was extremely active over the issue of the university administration’s revision of the APM regulations concerning outside employment of faculty, a document that claimed the right to regulate all outside employment, including activities conducted during weekends and holidays. CUCFA sent a lengthy analysis of the manifest deficiencies of the document to the administration and to the Academic Council of the Senate, and set a date for a formal consultation in August if our concerns were not addressed. In the end the administration accepted a redrafting of the regulations by the Academic Council which responded to the concerns of the CUCFA’s letter, and the formal consultation did not have to take place.
For several years, legal actions by the SCFA delayed the implementation of parking fee increases for senate faculty members, and in pursuing that matter, the SCFA has established important precedents that should help us hold the administration more responsible for its use of parking revenues in the future.