California Legislature Demands UC Workers Get Voice On Pensions

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Conflicts of interest prompt legislation to give workers vote on pensions

By Leland Yee, Ph.D.
Assistant President pro Tem
California State Senate

This week both houses of the California Legislature approved legislation which calls for shared governance of the University of California (UC) employee’s pension plan.

Approved with bipartisan support, Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 52 comes after recent revelations regarding conflicts of interest on the UC pension plan and the fact that the once top-performing plan is now significantly underperforming its peers.

The UC Retirement Plan is the only state public pension plan that does not give a voice to the workers and retirees. Both California State University and community college workers have pension plans with shared governance, with both employee and employer representation on their boards. At the UC, Regents currently have unilateral control over all pension decisions. As a result, we have seen complete mismanagement of their retirement plans and serious questions regarding financial conflicts of interest.

UC may claim that workers can influence pension plan decisions through the UC Retirement System Advisory Board. However, it was only after pressure from SCR 52 that the UC, for the first time in over six years, held elections in June to this superficial body. And even this election was a sham, as the University made it nearly impossible for thousands of employees to cast a vote, paving the way for two administrators to win the seats allocated for workers.

Over the repeated objections of workers and their representatives, UC held the advisory group election by asking employees to vote on the internet using an email account and a personal identification number (PIN) code on file with the University. However, many of the 9,000 service workers and some of the 10,000 patient care employees represented by AFSCME Local 3299 do not have internet access or an email account and PIN code, and therefore were unable to participate.

It was insensitive at best and malfeasance at worst for the UC to be so inconsiderate of their employees who are not supplied email accounts and do not have access to computers for their jobs, or to even require computer literacy as a prerequisite to voting. UC also failed to provide much of the voting information, including the ballot and PIN code setup, in the various languages UC workers understand, in effect further suppressing participation.