* SCFA Supports Our Student-Workers

Please join me in congratulating our AFSCME colleagues for the successful conclusion of their negotiations, which as you all have heard has averted next week's planned strike. This is an important victory for our workers. Our TA union (Student-Workers Union UAW 2865) is, however, proceeding with its plans for a strike on March 5, 2014. TA's cannot of course be penalized for participating in a legal strike, so please make the necessary adjustments due to TA's absence from work on that day. We at the Faculty Association encourage you to familiarize yourselves with the TA union's issues, and to do what you can to support their strike. The TA union is currently without a contract with the University of California, which limits the union's ability to pursue grievances by other means.

* UC Santa Cruz Budget Impact Survey

The Santa Cruz Faculty Association is sending out this Budget Cut Impact Survey to UCSC faculty so that we may assess the particular impacts of recent University of California budget cuts for faculty on our campus. The SCFA notes that since acute UC budget cuts began in Fall 2008, there has been no study of their impact on faculty, i.e. on our teaching, service, research, and morale. Nor have studies been done on how these impacts affect us similarly or differently across divisions, fields, and ranks. Our goal through the survey is to generate this data, and to use it to better represent faculty in our advocacy around the cuts. This project was sponsored by the Creative Responses to Crisis in Education: An SCFA Small Grants Program.

* Who Holds the Rights?

Faculty must defend their rights to their intellectual property, which are increasingly under threat, according to a draft report released Thursday by the American Association of University Professors…

* Important Changes in UC Health Care 2014

Letter from the SCFA Board to alert you to changes in health insurance coverage by the University that will affect all members of the UCSC faculty and staff in 2014. We are deeply concerned that faculty and staff have been so poorly and so tardily informed about these changes in health insurance coverage that could have major implications for their healthcare. Furthermore, because we begin classes so late in September, many faculty members and staff may not yet be aware of what UCOP is doing. The task now is to ensure that all Santa Cruz faculty and staff members are alerted to these impending changes, and that Senate leaders are informed of the difficulties they may generate for those in the UCSC community.