Hi I’m Angel Aldaco. Did you know that you have rights? Our union contract says you do. And so do I. I believe every man, woman, and child appointed as an ASE has these rights. That’s the union fights for you, ASE! If they are violated, better Call the Union!
Knowing your rights and obligations as an ASE is important to getting on the job. We’ve prepared a short flyer (only 2 pages!), which describes most of your important rights. However, here are the main takeaways I want to emphasize from the workload portion.
- The maximum workload for an N-hour TA during summer session C is 8N hours.
- Tutors and readers are hourly employees, which means that they should be logging the actual number of hours worked (not the same number every week).
- Work time “counts” even if it is optional, explicitly prohibited, or in excess of your appointed hours. Work time includes all pre- and post-semester work and all training and orientation work – excluding CS 375 but including GSI ethics course, GSI teaching conference, the 30 minute union orientation, and UC learning center courses.
To catch workload issues and promote a better work-life balance, we encourage even TAs to log their hours, which you can do with this helpful worksheet grid. If you catch any workload issues, or problematic instructions from supervisors, we encourage you to talk with your supervisor or reach out to your union stewards at berkeley+eecsds@uaw2865.org. We recognize that it can be difficult to talk to instructors about these issues, but in our experience instructors value fairness and honesty, and being open about workplace issues is the best way to build a positive, respectful, and productive work relationship.
The rights in our union contract (and our recently negotiated EECS/DS local agreement) are only possible because a majority of EECS and Data Science ASEs choose to be a part of our union, UAW 2865. I would encourage you to consider joining at https://uaw2865.org/join/. You can fill this out even if you’re already a member—duplicate responses will be automatically detected.