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The University of California’s roughly 2,500 lecturers will likely reject a comprehensive contract proposal put forward by the administration earlier this week, union officials said Friday. 

“That’s my sense of it,” said Kevin Roddy, president of the University Council-American Federation of Teachers, which has been locked in a 2 1/2-year-old labor spat with the university over wages, job security and independent arbitration of contract disputes. 

Rejection of the university’s offer could lead to a formal “impasse” in negotiations, sparking state intervention. 

University officials, who made the contract offer Wednesday and initially called for a union response by Friday, have agreed to a union request for a few more days to mull the offer. University spokesperson Paul Schwartz declined to comment until the union officially responds next week. 

Roddy said the union will post the university’s offer on its Web site in the coming days. If rank-and-file members find it agreeable, he said, the union will accept the proposal. But Roddy argued that the contract is inadequate and predicted that lecturers will reject it. 

According to a university press release, the two-year contract proposal includes an increase in minimum salaries for lecturers in both years of the contract.  

In 2002-2003, the minimum pay would jump from the current $28,968 to $35,868 for lecturers with less than six years experience and $40,200 for those with more than two years experience.  

In 2003-2004, the salaries would increase to $37,572 for “pre-six” lecturers and $41,712 for “post-six” lecturers. 

Union officials say the increase will only affect a small number of lecturers currently making less than the proposed minimum of $35,868, but university officials say the $7,000 raise marks a significant offer. 

Lecturers currently operate on year-to-year contracts for six years before receiving three-year contract renewals, contingent upon solid job performance reviews. 

At present, the university serves as the final authority in determining whether a lecturer stays on the job at the end of a one-year or three-year contract. The union wants to put an independent, third-party arbitrator in place who could review a case and refer it back to the university if an “unreasonable” decision had been made. 

Union officials said the arbitrator should be able to review the second decision and any subsequent decisions, again referring them back to the university if “unreasonable” judgments had been made. 

Roddy conceded that the arbitrator should not be allowed to make decisions on academic matters, such as the quality of a lecturer’s scholarship. But, he said the third-party figure should be able to review the basic facts of the case determining, for instance, whether a lecturer had received positive or negative performance reviews.  

According to Roddy, Wednesday’s university proposal allows for only one referral back to the university, and only in the event of a procedural error. 

Schwartz said limiting the review to procedural matters is justified. 

“We’re okay with a review of a procedure,” he said. “But what we will not agree to is any sort of review of our academic judgment.” 

Schwartz declined to speculate on what action the university will take if the union rejects the contract offer. But one possibility would be for the university to declare an “impasse” in negotiations. 

If the state determines that a true deadlock exists, it would begin a “fact-finding” process and recommend a contract to both sides. If the university and union reject the state solution, the university would have the power to impose a final contract. 

Lecturers held strikes at UC Berkeley in August and at five other UC campuses in mid-October. Roddy said more strikes are a possibility if the university clings to its latest offer. 

Contact reporter at scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net