The July 31st bargaining session marked fourteen months of negotiations between UAPD and the State of California. UAPD has come to the bargaining table 25 times during that period, and still there is no contract. Not one state-employee union has been able to settle a contract with the State of California since 2007.
While some tentative agreements have been reached in our negotiations, there remains a list of proposals that are still unresolved. The open proposals include language on furloughs, on-call, CME, holidays, salary equity, and a bonus plan, among others.
At the July 31st meeting, the DPA engaged in regressive bargaining when it rescinded a conceptual proposal it had made at an earlier bargaining session, which would have lowered the number of furlough days to one per month. The state also went back on its Tentative Agreement to continue the “Rural Healthcare Equity Program” –they now want to eliminate the $1500 per year healthcare supplement that doctors living in rural areas now receive. It is clear that even with the budget in place, the DPA has little interest in moving forward towards an agreement with UAPD. Instead, they are taking significant steps backward.
The UAPD Bargaining Team chose to withdraw a Tentative Agreement it had made regarding the “No Strike” clause of our contract. No future bargaining dates have been scheduled.
As some State-employee unions have begun taking strike votes, the UAPD Bargaining Team is now more than ever interested in hearing feedback from all its members about these negotiations. In the coming days members will receive a summary of the last 14 months of bargaining and a survey to complete. Please do take the opportunity to tell the UAPD Bargaining Team exactly what you think of the State’s bargaining practices, and what you believe would be our Union’s best response.