SANTA CRUZ -- The union representing some 3,000 University of California lecturers, including 400 at UC Santa Cruz, has come to an agreement with the university system to extend its contract until July 2011, officials said Friday.
The announcement came the day after students system-wide struck on behalf of higher education cuts on campus and Sacramento.
But, the economy drove the extension, rather than a renegotiation, said Mike Rotkin, a lecturer in the social-justice driven Community Studies Department, a union leader and city council member in Santa Cruz.
"They pushed it off because they didn't think it would be a good time for bargaining," he said, even though, "we have issues of concern."
Several lecturers' jobs are in turmoil because of lost state funding, and an extension might give dust time to settle before negotiations re-emerge.
An estimated 21 lecturers at UCSC with six years or more of experience have received preliminary layoff notices since January 2009, including Rotkin, who received one last year that was later rescinded. Lecturers with less than six years' experience are not rehired and do not receive notices, so it is difficult to quantify their numbers, said Allison Guevara, an American Federation of Teachers field representative.
Lecturers are non-tenured faculty that have become the bedrock of basic education at UCSC, teaching nearly half the classes on campus, said Rotkin. He's been at the university some four
decades and believes he will get a short extension or this pink slip will stick. His last day would be June 30.
University officials earlier this year asked all academic and support departments to submit budget reduction scenarios totalling 5.5 percent or 11 percent. UCSC has cut about $50 million in the past two years.
At UCSC, several lecturers attended the March 4 rally, and in February, language lecturers rallied outside