Yesterday, ASEs in EECS and Data Science, backed by other academic workers in the College of Engineering, delivered the letter that hundreds of YOU signed to show that university administration that we care about enrollment issues, contract violations, and retaliation in our departments.
Unfortunately, neither dean (nor any representative) was available/willing to speak, so we left a copy of the letter at each of their offices. The letter was over six feet long with signatures! In several weeks, the university is required to meet with union representatives in a “Joint Labor-Management Meeting” where many of the concerns in the letter can be discussed.
While no single action will ever fix all of our issues, demonstrating to the university that we won’t stay silent in the face of workspace and instructional issues is essential. It sets the ground for further work to be done in our mission to make EECS/DSUS a better place to teach and learn.
A copy of the letter is attached below:
Nov. 14, 2023
Dear Dean Chayes and Dean Liu,
We, ASEs in EECS and Data Science, demand an immediate improvement to instructional and working conditions in our departments.
Earlier this year, the community rejoiced at the historic creation of the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, optimistic that it could usher in a bright new future for EE/CS/DS education. Despite the fanfare, the first semester of CDSS’s existence did not come with a significant investment in instruction. Instead, it came with dramatic enrollment cuts to CDSS’s core majors in EECS & DSUS. Meanwhile, longstanding staffing shortages have prevented current students from enrolling in courses. And when students can enroll in courses, they struggle to get the help they need from understaffed and overworked ASEs.
The university has been on notice about these issues for a long time. With the creation of CDSS, now is an excellent time to fix them. We reject the notion that the UC lacks the resources to bring instruction in our departments to the same standards as elsewhere in the UC system even after undergraduate TAs in EECS/DSUS agreed to become the lowest paid TAs in the entire UC system.
As the UC has allowed instruction to falter, it has also attempted to undermine the contracts it has signed with EECS/DSUS ASEs. Fee remissions for hundreds of tutors, readers, and TAs was delayed or shorted. Experience-based raises for uGSIs have been denied. Summer instructors saw an unlawful $600 reduction to their pay. Tens of thousands in mandated damages for wages improperly deducted in May have been withheld. And across EECS and DSUS, ASEs have been appointed into the wrong titles, paid the wrong amounts, and have had their appointments taken away from them in the middle of the semester.
Instead of dealing with these issues, the UC has attempted to obstruct their resolution. Grievances have been delayed for weeks or not responded to at all. Union posters about overwork were unlawfully removed from Warren Hall. Courses declined to hold union orientations in violation of the EECS/DSUS local agreement. Most concerningly, a prominent CS professor has unlawfully threatened to eliminate much of his staff because of union activity, publicly stating that “[t]eaching here without interacting with the union will require a change in approach” and privately telling his staff that, as a condition of not going through with the plan, he would need a guarantee that ASEs would never strike.
We will not be intimidated. ASEs in EECS and Data Science stand united with each other in our resolve for improved working conditions. We stand united with students who are in desperate need of improved instructional conditions. And we stand united with faculty who struggle to balance the challenges of at-scale instruction with insufficient support from administration.
We demand:
- An increase in instructional funding.
- An end to all anti-union and anti-undergraduate retaliation.
- The remittance of all owed fee remissions, step raises, and wages, including legally-mandated damages.
- Reappointment of all workers into the correct job titles.
Sincerely,
(Hundreds of EECS/DSUS ASEs signed below)