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The lecturers’ union has been saying all year that it planned to strike at UCLA – first in January and then in April – to put pressure on the University of California at the bargaining table.

But with the legality of a strike in question, the union will be busier trying to recruit members rather than planning to leave classes.

The University Council– American Federation of Teachers, which represents the UC’s 3,000 lecturers hired on a term-to-term basis, originally planned to strike statewide with the clerical-based Coalition of University Employees.

The two unions have been negotiating with the UC over issues like wages and job security for more than two years. Other unions have promised to join in the protest to the extent that their own labor contracts allow.

“It is important that we work together to improve our conditions. We have different contracts, but similar problems,” said Rita Kern, statewide president of the University Professional & Technical Employees, representing researchers, technical employees and health care workers.

Under state law, unions are wholly responsible for negotiating wages, hours and working conditions for their members.

While the negotiation process can be as lengthy as necessary, the UC-AFT’s three years of negotiation is “extraordinary,” said Benjamin Arron, a nationally recognized authority on labor law and a UCLA School of Law professor emeritus.

That much time bargaining demonstrates the union isn’t strong enough to force the employer to reach a decision, he said.

Sometimes an employer will deliberately stall the process. When the union fails to reach an agreement, the employer expects union members will become so frustrated and dissatisfied that they will drop their membership or file a petition to have the union decertified, Arron said.

“The behavior is unfair ... but employers get away with it a lot of the time,” he continued.

Protesting their employer’s bargaining tactics, lecturers and clericals have already struck on three occasions over the last year at six UC campuses and at the UC Office of the President in Oakland. UCLA has yet to participate in any strikes.

The UC filed formal complaints against UC-AFT and CUE for striking at UC Berkeley in August and at five other campuses in October with the state board that oversees labor relations.

State law prohibits striking when bargaining the terms of a new contract. It is allowed after both parties declare impasse, the point at which both parties decide they can’t get any closer at the table.

But the unions said after their contract has expired – as is the case for UC-AFT, CUE and UPTE – they can strike to protest unfair labor practices.

Arron said the legality of strikes “is still a much embattled question. I don’t think the employment statutes say it is legal to strike, but none of them say it is illegal either. It usually boils down to whether the circumstances say it’s illegal.”

Until the hearing, the UC maintains even threats of strikes are evidence of bargaining without a committed intention to reach a mutual agreement.

Another reason lecturers have decided not to strike this April has to do more with its allies – the clericals.

In December, the UC declared it was at an impasse with CUE and asked the state Public Employment Relations Board to sanction the declaration, in effect forcing the two parties into a state-facilitated mediation whereby they might resolve their differences.

The board didn’t agree, but instead of going back to the table, CUE agreed to an informal mediation with the chair of the State Mediation and Conciliation Services, Micki Callahan.

In doing this they also agreed not to talk publicly about the proceedings or to strike.

The union can end mediation at any time if it is confident the UC wasn’t taking the process seriously, said Claudia Horning, statewide president of the CUE.

UC-AFT has trouble organizing multi-campus events, so it needs CUE’s support on the strike lines, said Rob Hennig, a chief negotiator for the UC-AFT bargaining team.

While some campuses have UC-AFT chapters – such as the Santa Cruz chapter which staged protests that prompted the cancellation of most classes in an October strike – others hardly participate in union activity at all. UCLA falls into the latter category.

At a Feb. 26 coalition rally outside Murphy Hall, for example, few attendees were from UC-AFT.

The other problem with organizing, said Kevin Roddy, UC-AFT statewide president, is the academic culture of independence. Lecturers are used to a degree of freedom, making it “difficult to talk them into the strength they would get from a union,” he added.

Though all lecturers pay a portion of their salary to the union each month in a “fair share,” only 37 percent are card-carrying members, Roddy said.

“That’s not as impressive as CNA, which is much more, 85 or 90 percent. You think twice about crossing that type of strength,” he added, speaking of the California Nurses Association who ratified their last contract after four months of negotiations.

Along with the service workers’ and teaching assistants’ unions, CNA has pledged its sympathy and support. Service workers ratified their contract last year after months, while the TA union is set to begin negotiating their second one at the end of this month.

Roddy said he still hopes the coalition can come together after a negotiation length that has dispirited members.

“If we do (strike), it will be because our situation has gotten so evil … It doesn’t take long to plan, but it would have to be very big in order to convince them we are serious,” Roddy said.