RPSP-UAW will represent some 7,200 workers across the UC system
By VINCE BASADA — campus@theaggie.org
7,200 research and public service professionals across all of University of California’s (UC) campuses have voted to form a new union.
The ballot, held in early September, tallied 3,080 to 612 in overwhelming favor of the creation of the Research and Public Service Professionals-United Auto Workers (RPSP-UAW).
The new union represents workers across a broad set of skills in the UC’s academic and research missions, including data analysts, research administrators, grant officers and field researchers. Their fields of study can vary from addressing public health and homelessness to astronomy and energy.
Aside from wanting to have input over their pay, benefits and working conditions, RPSP-UAW said that they formed in part due to recent threats from the federal government. On their website, the union expresses its belief that UC administrators have not been providing research and public service professionals enough of a say in their responses to changes at the federal level.
“Forming a union has never been more important with higher education under increasing attack,” Deborah Ferguson-Fitch, a research administrator at UC San Francisco, said in a press release. “We are joining a movement of research and professional employees in UAW who have been at the forefront of fighting funding cuts and protecting jobs and values in higher education.”
The sentiment was echoed by regional union leaders.
“As the Trump administration continues its assault on workers, it’s never been more important to join the movement of tens of thousands of higher education workers throughout the country who are standing up for social and economic justice at their jobs and in their communities,” Mike Miller, UAW Region 6 director, said in the same press release. “UAW members across the country look forward to standing with RPSPs in their fight to improve their working conditions, to protect research funding, and to create the better world we all deserve.”
In an email, UC Office of the President spokesperson Heather Hansen told The California Aggie that the University recognizes the union’s vote.
“These UC employees play a vital role in advancing UC’s mission at a time when both research funding and union rights are under attack nationally,” Hansen said. “We respect the decision of these workers and are committed to bargaining in good faith toward a first contract that strengthens UC’s research, public service and the workforce that makes both possible.”
Members of the RPSP-UAW now join some 50,000 academic and research workers systemwide who have already unionized with the United Auto Workers.
“Many of our closest colleagues at UC are already a part of this movement, and through an incredible organizing effort, we have now gained the same rights and bargaining power as them,” Ferguson-Fitch said.
The union plans to collectively bargain with the UC sometime this fall.
Written by: Vince Basada — campus@theaggie.org
