Page One, September 2010, Issue 41

Bargaining Continues With Second Sessions

The University of California continued negotiations with the California Nurses Association (CNA) for a new contract for Registered Nurses on August 30-31 and September 1 with sessions in San Francisco. Educational leave, UC retirement benefits, holidays and union business pay were among the topics discussed at the bargaining table:

• UC Retirement Benefits: The University discussed the recent task force report on proposed changes to UC retirement benefits and reiterated to the union UC’s goal of maintaining attractive, competitive benefits, and that pension benefits employees have already accrued will not be altered. Discussion of other changes recommended by the task force included:

- Increase contributions to the UC Retirement Plan over time by both the University and employees. Currently UC contributes 4% of pay and employees contribute roughly 2% of pay. The task force recommends increasing UC’s contributions to 10%, and employee contributions to 5%, by July 2012. (UCRP contributions for represented employees are subject to collective bargaining.)

- Addition of a new UCRP pension tier for employees who join UC after 2013.

As a next step, the UC Board of Regents is expected to discuss the task force report and vote on proposed UCRP contribution levels at its September meeting. More information about the proposed changes is available at the Future of UCRP web site.

• Educational Leave: UC again emphasized its full support for paid educational leave for classes relevant to the practice of nursing. As a new change to the contract, the University has proposed to incorporate language from the Board of Registered Nursing into the contract to help formalize the standards for acceptable courses. The Board’s description of acceptable course content is available on the BRN web site.

Please visit www.UCNurses.com for more information. If you have questions, please feel free to ask your supervisor or local human resources office throughout the negotiation process.