Systemwide Formation of Researchers Academic Unit

On March 22, 2019, the University and the United Auto Workers (UAW) entered into an agreement to recognize the Academic Researchers United/UAW as the exclusive representative of a unit of employees. The in-unit titles are Professional Researchers – Fiscal Year, Project Scientists, and Specialists.

Because the parties will be negotiating over salary increases, the represented Researcher Academic (RA) Unit members will not receive a range adjustment on July 1, 2019 or when a date is selected for a range adjustment for all non-represented academic appointees. However, the University will continue to conduct scheduled merit and promotion reviews for represented researchers and provide the correlated salary adjustments.

As part of the implementation process, below are important guidelines that exclude titles from the Researchers Academic Unit.

1. Without Salary (WOS) Appointments: All WOS appointments in the aforementioned title codes will be centrally transitioned by Payroll into corresponding WOS title codes, which will be excluded from the RA Unit. Below is a table that shows the new WOS title codes, which should be used for all WOS appointments in these respective title codes:

2. Visiting Titles: Individuals who have appointments or are employed by another institution will be appointed in visiting titles as described in APM-230 and are excluded from the RA Unit. One exception is that individuals who are without salary in visiting titles will also be excluded from the RA Unit and DOS code of “WOS” should be used with the corresponding visiting title codes. We have identified a handful of individuals currently in visiting titles that do not meet these criteria and will contact the affecting units to work directly with them to move these individuals to more appropriate title codes.

3. Professional Researchers: Any individual who has a concurrent Academic Senate appointment or a primary Non-Senate appointment (greater than 50%) will be excluded from the RA Unit if the following criteria are met: (1) the concurrent Non-Senate non-RA appointment must have research as a required duty of the appointment AND (2) the concurrent Non-Senate non-RA appointment must be the primary appointment, i.e., 50% or greater. Moving forward faculty should no longer have a Professional Researcher appointment when salary is funded from a grant at less than 50%. A new distribution line with the appropriate percentage under the individual’s Professorial appointment should be created using the grant funding account. In addition, below is a table that shows newly renamed Ladder-Rank Professional Researcher titles codes that should only be used for summer salary.

4. Supervisors/Managers: We have identified a handful of individuals currently in RA titles who are designated as supervisors. We will contact the affecting units to work directly with them to move these individuals to more appropriate title codes by June 5, 2019. Individuals listed as supervisors are excluded from the RA Unit. In addition, if you believe individuals appointed since August 2018 in these titles are serving as supervisors, please contact Eva Maida at emaida@uci.edu by no later than June 4, 2019, to provide the names of these individuals to allow AP to conduct the appropriate review regarding supervisor designation for these appointees. Below is a table that shows new non-representative titles codes that can be used for supervisors, managers, and out of state employees. New appointments into the following title codes will be subject to review of the Academic Personnel Office before the appointments can be finalized.

We will be holding an informational session for the Chief Personnel Officers in June to discuss this further.

For questions, please contact your assigned Academic Personnel analyst.