SUBJECT:

President Atkinson Open Letter to University Community

I would like to extend my personal thanks to the graduate students, faculty,
and staff who enabled the University to fulfill its responsibilities to our
undergraduate students during the strike called by the United Auto Workers
(UAW) in December. I appreciate the understanding displayed by our
undergraduate students and their families during the strike. Although the
strike did not have a material effect on undergraduate instruction, some
undergraduates were worried about its potential impact at the time.

As you know, the United Auto Workers, which is seeking to unionize teaching
assistants, suspended the strike at the request of Assembly Speaker Antonio
Villaraigosa and Senate President pro Tempore John Burton. The University,in
turn, agreed to a 45-day cooling-off period during which it would hold talks
with the UAW. This cooling-off period came to an end on January 20.

The four meetings with the UAW proved to be inconclusive. In the University's
view, they were useful to the extent that they gave each party a better
understanding of the other's concerns. During the meetings, the University
attempted to raise with the union the concerns of the graduate students, but
the UAW was not willing to discuss these topics unless the University formally
recognized the union as the exclusive bargaining agent of teaching assistants.

In a related event, in December the California Public Employment Relations
Board (PERB) by a 2-1 vote held that readers, tutors, and teaching assistants
at UCLA are employees within the definition of California's collective
bargaining law, the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA).
PERB has scheduled an election on March 9-11, 1999 for UCLA students in these
titles to vote on whether they wish to be represented by a union. We do not
agree with PERB's ruling concerning teaching assistants and have asked that
its decision be reviewed by the Court of Appeal.

The University's long-held position that graduate teaching assistants are not
employees as defined by HEERA has been upheld by the California Court
of Appeal, which ruled in 1992 that collective bargaining for graduate
teaching assistants would interfere with the goals of graduate education and
would not further the University's mission of teaching, research, and
public service. The California Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal
from the union to overturn the Court of Appeal ruling.

In recent months I have had discussions with students, faculty, chancellors,
Regents, legislators, presidents of other universities, and members of the
public about the appropriateness and desirability of collective bargaining for
graduate students, as well as the concerns voiced by teaching assistants about
workload and financial support. It is clear that within the University
community there are a variety of views on the issue of collective bargaining
for teaching assistants. I want to be explicit, therefore, about the principle
under which we have been operating.

The University has opposed collective bargaining for teaching assistants
because we believe that education is at the heart of the relationship between
faculty members and graduate students. We do not deny that in a number of
important ways graduate students who serve as teaching assistants are
employees, with all the rights and concerns any employee has. But we have also
insisted that the mentoring relationship between a faculty member and his or
her graduate student does and should take precedence. We are, first and
foremost, an educational institution, and there are few relationships within a
university that are unaffected by this central fact. In the future, as in the
past, any discussion of collective bargaining with teaching assistants must
recognize this fundamental educational relationship.

In order to address concerns raised by some graduate students, the
administration at each campus will work with academic departments to ensure
that existing University policies are being observed. In addition, the
University will continue its ongoing review of the competitiveness of UC
financial aid and other benefits offered to teaching assistants to ensure
that we offer our students support that is competitive with other research
universities.

My colleagues on the faculty and I have all been graduate students at earlier
stages in our lives. We understand and value the contributions of graduate
students as apprentice teachers, as scholars and researchers, as mentors for
undergraduates, and as colleagues. We will make every effort to ensure that
their experience at the University of California is all that it should be,
whatever the results of the current discussions about collective bargaining.

Sincerely, Richard C. Atkinson President