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"Everyone appreciates the loyalty, hard work, and dedication of the staff and wants to see their situation improve markedly." |
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Chancellor Robert Birgeneau |
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Berkeley Staff Assembly
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BSA Officers 2009-2010
Eileen Bell
Beverly Skinner Chair-elect
Lee Forgue Secretary
Karen Denton Treasurer
CUCSA Delegates 2009-2010
Paul Riofski Senior Delegate
Steve Garber, Jr Junior Delegate |
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Questions presented to Chancellor Birgeneau at the June 15, 2009 BSA General Membership Meeting Responses will be posted soon. |
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1) President Yudof indicated at a recent CUCSA meeting that UC is looking to adopt unpaid holidays in lew of furloughs due to the difficult nature of implementing a furlough program in a campus/medical center setting. What are UCB's plans for unpaid holidays or furloughs? If no pay increases are in our future for a while, could there be better discounts for University employees for Extension courses?
2) Could Administrative staff get training geared specifically to move into MSO positions, i.e. training on BFS/HRMS/BAIRS, even if we don't use it in the scope of our current positions. Otherwise, how might we move to another higher classification level?
3) Do you believe that there is enough representation of women and minorities at the executive level (Deans, chairs, provosts, etc) in both the academic and staff sides of Cal? Do our leadership demographics accurately reflect our mission of access and equity?
4) Can you describe any tangible signs of improvement in staff management and staff development in reports you've received following your August 2007 campus message on Performance Management at Berkeley? What mechanisms and controls are in place to measure this?
5) Furloughs is the talk of the town this and next fiscal year. Wishful thinking makes me wonder if Berkeley can be spared that option. Because most people would not be able to take days without pay, do you foresee using vacation or sick time to cover time lost due to furloughs?
6) Can you explain the difference between a furlough and a salary reduction and how these affect our benefits, time vested at the university etc. Do you know yet which will be applied to UC staff?
7) The Riverside campus is considering implementing a furlough program by holidays off from work being unpaid. Is this being considered by all the campuses? Also, will accrued years of service and retirement be negatively affected and in what ways.
8) I have heard that, in case there is a furlough for faculty and staff, that faculty who have other potential sources of support than 19900 may be able to switch their missing salary to these sources. Will there be any such provision for staff?
9) In tough times like these it's the little things that make life more "bear"able. What can BSA do to help improve communications up and down the food chain? What should we be doing to help keep up morale?
10) Career Compass is, in part, developing career paths for all staff employees and it's hoped that Employee Development & Training might provide programs to help employees advance in their careers. Will it include a program to assist administrators to advance, so that internal hiring and promotions may occur? Currently, high salaries are being justified as needed to attract outside talent, as with recent chancellor hires, but maybe one of the 170,000 employees of the UC system could have qualified and gotten a promotion and pay raise without being exorbitantly high? Are our current administrators really that unqualified?
11) Why was the hiring freeze not implemented in July 2008? It was obvious that the country and state was in a financial crisis. The departments must be mandated not to do things, otherwise they just continue on their merry way.
12) Chancellor Birgeneau, how do you think abut the issue of desired employee retention, when there is so much beyond UCs control when it comes to budgets and work/life balance,ie, fewer people doing more work with less rewards (and I am not talking about only the lack of merit incresed), is there a concern about loosing talent, given the cost of doing without them and the eventual cost of rehires, given an environment where some of the best may choose to leave out of financial neccessity?
13) Governor Patterson of NY recently elected to install a fifth tier to the state pension program. This results in drastic reductions in pensions for newly hired employees, including increased mandatory contributions to the pension fund, an increase in the time to be vested from 5 to 10 years, and an increase in the minimum retirement age from 55 to 62. Has there been serious discussion in California about enacting similar changes in pension plans for state workers? I understand that there is a proposal to separate the management of pension funds for UC staff from the pension fund of the academic employees. What is the logic behind this proposal? Where did it originate and how would staff go about affecting the outcome of this proposal?
14. I understand that there is a proposal to separate the management of pension funds for UC staff from the pension fund of the academic employees. What is the logic behind this proposal? Where did it originate and how would staff go about affecting the outcome of this proposal?
15. Dear Chancellor Birgeneau, I realize and appreciate that in our current budget crisis you have to make some very difficult decisions about our resources in order to maintain teaching, research and service excellence. I appreciate the thought and on-going communications you and leadership have shared about such challenging choices. I accept that there will have to be sacrifices made to services that are not considered "core" to our mission within our current climate of limited resources. When I consider the situation and objectively consider my position, I realize and almost expect that my job could very well be eliminated. We all want to feel that we are invaluable and that our role is vital to this campus. After all, we were all once selected from a competitive recruitment process to become part of the UCB community. But the reality in this situation seems to be that some positions will have to be cut in order to meet our permanent budget cuts and maintain our academic and research pre-eminence. I am a high-performing employee with a strong record of contributing in a value-added way. I am confident that this can be verified both formally through all of my “exceeds- expectations” performance reviews, the quality of my work output, and informally through my associations and reputation on campus. Regardless, I consider that I may soon be laid off. I accept this possibility, have faith in my abilities and will view this as an opportunity for growth, learning and new ventures. Within this context, my question is this: How can you help to mitigate the stigma on campus and even the use of language and stereotyping that I sometimes hear that those who are laid off are the "under-performers" and "dead wood"? This to me is not reflective of our values or the sensitivity to which everyone in these challenging and uncertain times deserves. Thank you. |
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Photo credit: Marc Buchalter |