The University of California has a $41 billion budget. It has enough money to pay athletic coaches multi-million-dollar salaries. It has enough money to give nine Chancellors huge raises in the hundreds of thousands of dollars EACH! But the UC claims it doesn’t have enough money to pay essential workers like Library Professionals the salaries and benefits needed to make ends meet in California.

The UC has historically misclassified Library Professionals (LPs), depriving them of Union representation and years of the guaranteed raises that they would have received if they were classified properly. In March 2022, as ordered by the State, LPs gained Union representation and in August 2022 began bargaining with the UC for fair wages.

Over eight formal bargaining sessions, the UC has ignored and downplayed LPs' dedication and exemplary service. Despite mounting job responsibilities and job elimination, Teamsters LPs have worked tirelessly to support remote teaching and learning during the pandemic; met the needs of students, researchers, and global knowledge consortiums in providing world class preservation services; and implemented a new systemwide library catalog for the largest academic library system in the world. Library Professionals are essential UC workers.

Although we have reached a Tentative Agreement with the UC on wage ranges, the UC still refuses to pay compensation retroactive to March 2022, when LPs joined the Union. Four months of retroactive compensation is nothing to the UC, a multi-billion dollar system, but everything to us, our families, and our communities.

Help us fight for the wages we've earned by sending a letter to UC Chancellors and Librarians now!