Systemwide Academic Senate Committees

I began serving on the Systemwide Committee on Faculty Welfare (UCFW) in September of 2009, concurrent with my appointment as chair of the Divisional Faculty Welfare Committee.  The Systemwide committee met monthly in Oakland, requiring early morning and late evening flights between Oakland and Ontario, California for each meeting.  The first two years were dominated by the development and evaluation of proposals to reform the UC retirement system and other post-employment benefits (“PEB I” to contrast with additional changes to the retirement system in 2015-16 (“PEB II”)).  I had significant roles in organizing presentations on campus to explain the options to audiences of staff, faculty, and retirees.  Within UCFW, I participated in efforts to encourage President Yudof to adopt "Option C," the option most similar to the current retirement program at that time, and the option that ultimately was adopted. 

UCFW Vice-Chair and Chair (2011-2014)

After two years’ service as the divisional representative to UCFW, I was appointed Vice-Chair of that committee for 2011-12.  That year's two most important challenge were in working with the Systemwide administration to lower the costs of medical insurance for current and former employees while still providing a reasonable level of care, and to defend the new retirement program from further erosion.  I started a five-year run as an ex-officio member of two standing subcommittees of UCFW, the Task Force for Investment and Retirement (TFIR) and the Health Care Task Force (HCTF).  I quickly became impressed with the subject-matter of these two committees and the ability of the members to apply their academic expertise toward the design and implementation of benefits plans for all UC employees. 

I was appointed the Chair of UCFW in 2012-13 and served as chair of that committee and as a member of the Academic Council for two years.  For both years, UCFW had two major issues.  The first concerned major changes to the design of UC’s employee health benefits.  The second concerned the effects of the changes to the retirement plans in 2013 and the health plans on the total compensation, or total remuneration, of faculty, and the competitiveness of UC’s total remuneration.

Health Plans Rebid and the Launch of UC Care

Probably the biggest change to the health benefits was the initiation of the “UC Care” plan, a self-insured plan that was drafted by UCOP’s Risk Management unit.  Rather than continue to engage external insurers, this plan focused upon making the UC health centers the primary treatment facility on campuses with medical schools, and upon assembling a UC-specific network of local providers for those campuses without medical schools.  We found that the development was hasty and incomplete when it was offered during open enrollment.  The communication about it also was incomplete, and there were imperfect and undesirable treatment options for faculty on the campuses without medical centers.  Given these problems, UCFW found it necessary to write an “open letter”* to all faculty outlining our concerns and suggesting that faculty do their research before selecting this new health benefit option.

Total Remuneration Study for Faculty, 2014

UCFW has always championed the idea that one’s total remuneration extends beyond simply one’s total salary.  The value of health and retirement benefits must be considered, as well as the employee cost of those benefits.  UC has periodically undertaken comprehensive studies of total remuneration, and the expertise of UCFW and, in particular, its two standing task forces, have been critical to making sure that these studies were performed accurately and consistent with appropriate industry and actuarial practices.  The substantial changes to post-employment benefits, including the re-start of employee contributions to the retirement plan, along with the changes in healthcare plans at about the same time justified the reexamination of UC’s total remuneration and the comparison to the previous study in 2009.  Despite UCFW’s strong advocacy for the need of such a new study, it took nearly a year to get the administration to agree.

A priority was to use the same methodology in 2014 as in 2009.  By using the same methods and comparators (the “Comp 8”) it then would be possible to directly assess the changes in benefits on total remuneration while avoiding extraneous methodological artifacts.  UC hired the Mercer consultants, and the study was managed in the UCOP department of Academic Personnel.  I asked two faculty members who participated in the 2009 study, Prof. emeritus Bob Anderson (UCB) and Jim Chalfant (UCD) to review the consultants’ work for accuracy and methodological consistency with previous studies, along with myself.  We quickly learned that everything needed to be rechecked every step of the way, because errors often were introduced into older results as newer results were calculated.   

The results were released in July of 2014.  Among the most important findings were that total remuneration for faculty at UC trailed its peers by 10%, and that, contrary to prior studies, UC benefits did not compensate for lower-than-market salaries. I was a member of the team that presented these results to the Regents  in 2015.  We explained that:

·         Between 2009 and 2014, UC’s total remuneration for general campus ladder-rank faculty Systemwide fell from two percent below market to ten percent below market.

•        Between 2009 and 2014, salaries for this group fell from ten percent below market to 12 percent below market.

•        Between 2009 and 2019 Health and Welfare benefits fell from six percent above market in 2009 to seven percent below market.

•        Between 2009 and 2014, retirement benefits decreased in value from 29 percent above market for the older 1976 plan to two percent below market for the 2013 retirement plan. The reduction was driven both by the adoption of the 2013 pension tier and the restart of employee contributions to the retirement plan.

The Regents had hardly any reaction.  In fact, the most notable response was to cut the retirement benefits even more through the adoption of the State of California PEPRA cap in the new UCRP 2016 tier.  I continue to find it disheartening that Regents and administrators continue to address the UC salary gap by trying to make the case that UC’s benefits compensate for UC’s below-market salaries, even though they should know that not to be true.  Moreover, when benefits are discussed, they are usually discussed in isolation, and not as a component of total remuneration.  Any benefit that is greater than our peers is always a target for reduction despite UC’s persistent salary gap. 

Now that the retirement benefit has been reduced with the adoption of the 2016 retirement tier, the value of UC’s retirement benefit has deteriorated even further, and an update to the 2014 Total Remuneration study is surely justified.  Unfortunately, I doubt that any such study will be undertaken.  In addition to the cost and effort, I suspect that the UC administration is too afraid to learn, and too afraid for its employees to learn, how uncompetitive UC’s salary and benefits have become.

*Links are to local copies of public documents and webpages available and accessed in June, 2021.  This preserves future access to the documents if the host deletes or changes the location of the cited materials at some later time.