Winter news bulletin from the Davis Faculty Association

This brief communication is to let members know that the DFA Board is actively pursuing several important issues and is working with members to resolve various problems. This bulletin will serve as an overview of additional, more detailed, briefs to come over the span of the quarter.

The DFA Board is pursuing the following issues:

The Davis Professorial Salary Scale and its potential inequities. We are exploring working with the Senate to resolve some of the issues. Please let us know your experiences and concerns about this matter.

Campus and University-wide policies on family welfare issues such as the availability of child care on campus, inequities (especially for fathers) in the parental leave policy, establishment of clear policies for sick-child, spouse, or elder care, and the rising costs of health care itself.

Transmission to a commercial company of confidential financial and tax information, including our Social Security numbers - raising concerns about privacy and potential misuse of personal information for commercial purposes. As a result of our initial efforts, the Office of the President has agreed to open up the W-2 election on the UC At Your Service Online web site to allow you to have your W-2 information deleted from the TALX database. This should be available in the next few days and should remain available for about 30 days. Members of the DFA board helped bring this matter to the faculty at large, which has led to the recent Academic Senate call: “We demand that all of these files be expunged immediately and any subsequent request be on an opt-in basis only, after appropriate Senate consultation.” The DFA board will provide more information in the next news brief to be sent out shortly.

Other Matters:

The DFA board is working closely with an Assistant Professor to help him resolve issues surrounding his tenure case.

Ian Kennedy, Chair of the DFA, met recently with the Associate Vice President for Human Resources, Judy Boyette, and her team at the University President's Office. The discussions addressed the transfer of assets from the University retirement system to the new management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the uncertain fate of assets at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The future of our defined benefit plan was also discussed, as was the future of retiree health benefits. More information on these issues will be provided in the winter quarter news briefs.

The Board of the Davis Faculty Association encourages members to transmit any concerns, issues, or suggestions that they believe should or might be addressed by the Board on behalf of DFA members. Remember that the Faculty Association can do things that the Academic Senate cannot do: through the UC Council of Faculty Associations we can lobby the Legislature and the UC Regents; we can provide independent opinions, particularly because we are not dependent on the University administration for any resources and are in no way beholden to them.

Please communicate directly with our executive director, Myrna Hays, at the following e-mail address: myrna@ucdfa.org