Monday 10/24/2011, there was a special video chat with UC VP of Human Resources Dwaine Duckett in Oakland. He started by talking about seniority and again pretending the new proposed policy is “clarifying” something we have to think would have been left unclear in the 2003 policy. This “clarifying” language, surely approved by UC’s top administration, is dubious, hypocritical, and counterproductive. There is nothing to clarify: the 2003 policy was clear. Now, that UC wants to do away with seniority as the only sensible criterion and instead wishes to introduce nebulous but *flexible* categories, I understand and oppose. But please don’t claim you are clarifying!!!

Here is the key sentence in the 2003 60-E document regarding layoffs:
>Indefinite layoff and indefinite reduction in time are effected by unit, by classification, and by salary grade (in the event of a classification assigned to different salary grades) in inverse order of seniority, except that an employee may be retained irrespective of seniority if that employee possesses special skills, knowledge, or abilities that are not possessed by other employees in the same classification and same salary grade (in the event of a classification assigned to different salary grades), and which are necessary to maintain the operations of the department.

UC Human Resources is proposing a new 2011 personnel layoff policy for staff that would do away with seniority as fundamental criterion and turning it into one of a menu of criteria, including an all-targets performance criterion.

1. the performance criterion is not only nebulous and subjective but downright flawed from the get-go. It assumes performance can be measured objectively, but there are a number of obstacles to this:
* many units haven’t done performance evaluations in the past. In the absence of a track record, who will decide what the performance criteria are? Will failure to apply the new policy be a performance criterion for directors and administrators?
* there are documented instances of top administrators at UC leaning on evaluators and demanding that the top grade in performance (“outstanding” as part of the traditional five-degree scale) no longer be used under any circumstance.
* the impossibility to have universal scales across departments and divisions.

2. Seniority is the only passable objective criterion, for a number of reasons:
* it is the only principle on which everyone can agree in good and tough times.
* it is part of a moral contract between UC and its staff employees. The proposed policy is reneging on its long-term promises.
* there will be negative consequences on morale if it is watered down: there were already salary cuts, increased work, benefit curtailment, and now there is this potential disregard for experience and years of loyal service.
* productivity will suffer in response to lower trust and negative competition.

3. The new policy is proposed as a clarification (the word “clarify” appeared several times in the announcement, and now is repeated in this video-PR exercise by VP Duckett). This wording creates the notion that it is an emendation of something already present in the 2003 policy. In fact, the 2003 text of Personnel Policies for Staff Members is very clear in adhering to the seniority principle. Seniority is the rule, not simply the dominant factor as the email implies, as if it were one of many factors. It is so much the rule that the 2003 text frames retention because of special skills, knowledge or abilities as an exception, on top of the seniority principle. What is proposed in the 2011 text is therefore not a clarification but a new set of rules in which seniority is only one of several criteria, and listed last.