Campus administrators are listening. But they don’t think that you care.
At the latest bargaining session, Mara Otero, a representative for the university, noted that university administrators have questioned whether all 900 ASEs are serious about our demands for increased staffing and not completely gutting our wages & benefits.
“When we got back to the [administrators] that there is no deal without this, we do get pushback and they say ‘show me’,” Otero said. “But 900 people—how many people are showing up?”
For the last 6 weeks, many students and ASEs have come to me saying, “It seems hopeless. The university’s budget will never change. They don’t care about us.” The university representative has told us that change is possible and that the administrators are listening — we just need to all raise our voices. The brightness of the departments’ future is directly proportional to the number of people who show up, show out, and make their voices heard. In the coming days, we will start a mass campaign to let the university know that we will accept nothing less than what is needed to improve instructional quality in EECS/DS. Keep your eyes peeled.
The other aspect of this is that our entire EECS/DS community must come together and stand together in our fight to improve staffing. For now, please tell your students to fill out the undergraduate petition eecsdsstaff.org/petition. Please consider emailing this to all of your students.
Other points covered during the meeting
- Character and faith: After yesterday’s session during which Professor John DeNero questioned the representational abilities of the ASE bargaining team and made comments about arbitrator Barry Winograd, there was a conversation on the character of the bargaining process. DeNero apologized for the character of his comments and noted that in the future he would “focus on the things [he’s] good at” on the bargaining team. Professor Josh Hug noted how a certain antagonism has developed and also described how the university quickly pivoted to paying ASEs less during week 4 of the bargaining process as “kind of lame.” ASEs observed how frustrating the process has been, as ASEs have made numerous concessions toward the university, but have not received any movement from their position.
- Interfacing with administration: Professor John DeNero shared information about his process for interfacing with campus administrators. He noted that there are essentially three levels of approval that every proposal has to go through: the chairs, deans, and provosts. DeNero noted that he emailed ASEs’ most recent supposal to the “decisionmakers.” He said that the department chair rejected the proposal because the department would choose to make large cuts to enrollment (because the university has not yet budgeted enough money to fund it). DeNero observed that the deans and provost had not yet commented on the supposal. ASEs questioned whether DeNero was pressing administrators enough by sending the supposals via email.
- Survey: ASEs are continuing to consider the possibility of developing another course staff survey. However, given the tight timeline of the process, this may be impractical.
- Mediation: As we continue to search for a mediator, both sides have implicitly agreed to continue bargaining.
Upcoming bargaining sessions:
- Friday, March 24
- Pre-caucus: 9:30–10:10 a.m. in Soda 380
- Bargaining session: 10:10–11:30 a.m. in Soda 380
- Post-caucus: 11:30–12 p.m. in Soda 373
You can also join the bargaining sessions via Zoom at https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/95216694463. Caucuses are not accessible via this Zoom. If you are an ASE who would like to join the caucuses virtually, please let me know and we will send you a special Zoom link.
In solidarity,
Gabe Classon
CS 61A uGSI