Students voiced their support for UC Santa Cruz service workers outside of the Cowell/Stevenson and College Nine/Ten dining halls on Feb. 27. Photo Courtesy of Victoria Salgado.

As negotiations continued for a new UC service worker contract, UC Santa Cruz workers rallied in front of the Cowell/Stevenson and College Nine/Ten dining halls. Held on Feb. 27, the actions were two of many organized by the UC service worker’s union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME 3299), across the 10-campus system.

“We take care of you — UC take care of us!” picket signs read as UCSC dining hall workers and students united to demand greater respect as UC employees.

A critical component of the discussion at the bargaining table, hosted at UC Davis, is the issue of pension plans and retiree health benefits.

The UC recently proposed a two-tier pension and retiree health benefit plan, which would increase all service worker persion contributions by 1-2 percent of wages, and raise the minimum age of retirement from 50 to 55 for employees hired after July 1 of this year.

As part of ongoing discontent with worker treatment, AFSCME 3299 organizer for UCSC Rebecca Gilpas also spoke about larger issues at hand.

“UC is the third largest employer in California, so they have the power to increase or decrease the standard of life,” Gilpas said. “But you’re told that if you don’t like it,  there’s another person in line — get out. Shame!”

Dining hall worker and longtime AFSCME activist Maria Padilla spoke of environmental working conditions at the dining halls that students can see.

“Every year, it seems like more and more students come to the dining halls and we have just the same amount of workers,” Padilla said.

Photo Courtesy of Victoria Salgado.

Director of housing services David Keller and two assistant managers of employee and labor relations watched the rally from a short space away. Keller said they had no control over the contract negotiations themselves and that they were in attendance as part of their job.

The rally also focused on students’ connection to dining hall workers. Of the roughly 40 individuals present at both rallies, about half were students. Similar to the Jan. 31 action, in which scores of students and employees came out, a Facebook event was organized by the Student Labor Action Project.

Organizing director of the Student Union Assembly and former student dining hall worker Kevin Huang led chants at the rally and criticized dining hall hiring practices in a later interview with City on a Hill Press.

“The administration is definitely overcompensating [the need] to hire new full-time staff by hiring part-time student workers,” Huang said. “We’re not as trained — we don’t have the time to fully commit to a full-time job like a service worker from AFSCME.”

Huang added that it was heartening to see so many workers in attendance.

“It was really powerful to see the workers themselves step out and show some courage in urging their employer [to grant] respect and dignity in the workplace,” Huang said.

As the workers who care for you and your campus, what we do is essential to UC’s ability to provide you with a world-class education.  Our work isn’t glamorous, but we do it to support you – our future – and we take real pride in that. Today, we are engaged in a struggle with the UC administration over issues that affect us deeply: retirement with dignity, wages and jobs that sustain us, and most importantly, the ability to advocate for ourselves and the campus communities we serve.

At age 60, after 20-plus years of hard work, we will retire with permanent injuries, unaffordable healthcare, and an average retirement income of $18,000/year.  The UC administration, however, has proposed changes to these benefits that will leave us impoverished, while their trend toward understaffing leaves us exposed to even greater risk of permanent harm before we make it to retirement.

Increasingly, the work to keep your campus clean and safe is being done by people who work for outside contractors, make poverty wages with no benefits, have no rights at work, and a contingent relationship to you and your campus. This creates unsafe working conditions for us, and poor conditions for your learning.

For this, you are paying higher fees, yet the training and research you do while at UC is the foundation for what is a highly profitable university system.  The UC system is the third largest employer in the state, impacts one out of 46 jobs in the state, and reported an increase of $414 million in net assets last year.

We think that UC can and should do better. For this reason, we are fighting for our dignity, safety, and livelihoods, and to restore the excellence that you deserve and should expect from the University of California.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Lybarger

President, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 3299

www.afscme3299.org

Illustrations by Leigh Douglas

Correction: In this printed feature, we incorrectly stated that AFSCME Local 3299 had only 47 members. AFSCME Local 3299 actually has 20,000 members statewide– a local UCSC unit of the union has 47 members.

There were about 20 of them. They stood in the sun at the base of campus on concrete islands planted amid the steady flow of buses and student drivers. They held signs and handed out flyers. Some students stopped to talk to them, but most didn’t.

At UC Santa Cruz, union protesters aren’t an unfamiliar sight. That was on April 28, a Saturday — appropriate, considering that without unions, weekends might not exist.

A few days later, on May 1, just over 50 students and union workers took to the campus streets — with the workers delivering their bargaining proposals in person to UC administrators. May 1 was International Workers’ Day, almost a must-show for the pro–labor rights crowd, both student and worker. But for UCSC, the crowd of 50 was a little anemic.

The few workers and students present chanted alternately in English and Spanish, and though their numbers were low, energy was high.

“We’re going to fight until the end,” said senior custodian Rosario Cortes, addressing the crowd through a bullhorn. “Until we win.”

The union demonstrating both days was the American Federation for State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with the local chapter being AFSCME Local 3299. It is a small union, with the local UCSC unit comprising about 47 members.

“We’re not a statewide entity. We’re local to this campus, and we bargain our own contract,” said Family Student Housing carpenter Orin Hutchinson. “I think that one person can make a difference.”

Public sector unions, like the ones at UCSC and other public entities, aren’t nearly as marginalized as unions in the private sector. Public sector, or government, workers are unionized at about a 37 percent rate, compared to only about 7 percent for workers in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Still, the university budget crisis is a storm that hasn’t let up, and unions at UC haven’t weathered it unscathed. From AFSCME’s workers to the librarians and lecturers of University Council – American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT), union members in the public sector have been hit right along with students by the financial crisis buffeting the state and the UC system at large.

With budgets being slashed, contracts renegotiated and union members dropping out of the system left and right, it’s time to look at the working environment provided by Santa Cruz’s largest employer: UCSC.

AFSCME’s Fight

The green shirts of AFSCME members make them easily recognizable for UCSC students. This university employees union demonstrates frequently, and can often be found protesting alongside students both on campus and at the state capitol.

Like UC students, they’ve had a rough time lately. Spikes in pension and healthcare contributions have created some significant hurdles for public sector unions.

“For the last 20 years, they [the UC] haven’t given any money to pensions,” senior custodian Cortes said. “We are the ones paying for us. They want to take our retirement.”

From 2007 to 2010, professional support staff positions have dropped from 3,010 part-time and 1,897 full-time employees to 2,703 and 1,827 respectively, with hiring freezes taking as much of a toll as employee layoffs.

“We’re being asked to do more work with less people,” said campus electrician and AFSCME member Gary Riggs.

Layoffs and overwork are two iconic responsibilities that UC unions are finding it increasingly difficult to prevent.

“The university is adding millions of square feet in new buildings, yet they’re shrinking the number of employees that maintain and work on those buildings,” Hutchinson said. “There’s a lot of deterioration going on at this campus.”

AFSCME currently doesn’t provide job security to its members, and that item is central to their contract negotiations with the university.

“As the article is written now, the university has the ability to lay off employees and then contract out that work later with no repercussions,” Riggs said.

Additionally, AFSCME was hit by a breach of contract scandal on March 6. UCSC had allegedly been taking additional healthcare and pension contributions out of workers’ paychecks. This is something that’s supposed to be bargained over, according to California Government Code Section 3571, but UCSC allegedly did it before the contract negotiations had begun. AFSCME took UCSC to court over the issue, and it’s currently being resolved.

UCSC and AFSCME are now at an impasse regarding AFSCME’s contract and are headed to mediation on May 7. With money tight, UCSC is being forced to take a harder stance toward its workers, union members included.

“UC workers have every right to express their voice, as long as their actions are in line with UCSC policy,” said UCSC employee and labor relations manager Renée Mayne on May 1. “The university is very committed to bargaining in good faith.”

Some union members, however, don’t see it that way. Rebecca Gilpas, an AFSCME organizer, said the UC simply isn’t being straight with them.

“The employer is not coming to the table in good faith,” Gilpas said, referring to the UC’s finagling over AFSCME’s contract. “This is the one opportunity we have to present what is due and fair, and we’re out here because we want the public to know that UCSC does have the money. UCSC seems to always take but not give, and we want the public to know that.”

Miki Goral, state treasurer of UC-AFT and a librarian at UCLA, is skeptical as well.

“Employees are now contributing more to their retirement funds, and healthcare costs paid by the employee do go up,” Goral said. “The union [UC-AFT] doesn’t necessarily buy the fact that the UC doesn’t have money when you see all these huge raises at the administrative levels.”

AFSCME is one of the more visible unions on the UCSC campus, so their plight hasn’t gone unnoticed. And UCSC is renowned for the cooperative spirit fostered between union workers and students. Former Santa Cruz mayor and former community studies lecturer Mike Rotkin said UCSC is notable within the UC system for how it treats unions.

“We actually have an administration at UCSC that’s less anti-union,” Rotkin said. “We don’t tend to have a campus that totally ignores the contract — like UCLA, who ignores contracts all the time and then they go to arbitration.”

But considering UCSC’s recent stance toward AFSCME’s contract negotiations, that may be changing.

UC-AFT: Battle of Attrition

UC-AFT is a far cry from AFSCME — with over 3000 members on all the UC campuses, the librarian/lecturer union has more clout and is the only academic union on campus. But they’ve taken hits as well, especially the librarian unit (unit 17; the lecturers are represented by unit 18, and have their own contract, which is also being negotiated).

“Most of us are being paid at the level we were in 1999 and 2003, in real dollars,” said UC-AFT representative and UCSC librarian Kenneth Lyons. “When you compare our pay with the pay of CSU and community college librarians, we come out very much behind.”

Librarians at UC, who are largely if not entirely unionized, have suffered pay inequities for years. On average, they’re paid roughly 20 percent less than librarians at California State Universities (CSUs) and community colleges, with some variations based on seniority and rank. This, Lyons thinks, hurts the UC. And the UC realizes that, too, but they’ve reacted in a different way.

“Because the UC recognizes that to retain librarians they need to pay them better, what has happened in a lot of cases are rank and file librarians being made into managerial staff and given managerial stipends,” Lyons said.

Stipends might not sound like an issue, but the managerial promotion amounts to a union-dodging measure by the UC.

“What happens then is that they’re moved out of the union, because they’re now managers,” Lyons said. “It’s a workaround for retention. In a lot of cases, the managerial duties are not as managerial as they want us to believe.”

Additionally, the UC has tapped another resource to avoid dealing with union members: students and temporary workers. UC-AFT treasurer Goral has noticed a trend.

“There’s definitely a movement toward using students to do the work that librarians do,” Goral said. “But the idea that you can just hire student assistants and give them a little training — it puts the [student] worker in an awkward position, because they’re trying to help, but they don’t have the requisite knowledge and skills.”

Lyons notices the trend at UCSC as well.

“Temporary employees and library staff — non-librarians and students — are being used more and more to do librarian work. The administration then feels they can increase librarian workload,” Lyons said. “It’s an issue for both librarians and the services provided by the library.”

Librarians, who predominantly have master’s degrees, are jumping ship to work at CSUs and community colleges, or simply finding work elsewhere. Their jobs are being filled by untrained students and temporary workers. And their pay is stagnating. But the union isn’t completely defanged.

“Librarians have secure jobs. People haven’t been laid off for the most part,” Lyons said. “But positions have been reduced through attrition. Still, you have secure employment and a more traditional retirement system. If we didn’t have union protections, I think there would have been layoffs.”

Lecturers, on the other hand, have experienced a different trajectory. As lecturers are usually cheaper than professors and other tenured university staff, their use has skyrocketed.

“They’re cheaper, and can teach twice the courses for half the cost,” Rotkin said. “It’s good for the union, but not great for the educational system.”

As someone who has taught at UCSC for several decades, Rotkin can comment on trends in lecturer use.

“Now, lecturers do about half the teaching in the UC system,” he said. “Back in 1969, lecturers were doing about 10 percent.”

Many lecturers are part-time, and many of them don’t get sick leave or vacation. And when the university needs to make cuts, new lecturer hires are usually first to go, as their job protections don’t tend to kick in until they’ve been at the university for several years, Rotkin said.

“They can’t get rid of you ‘just because’ or just to save money, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get to your sixth year,” Rotkin said, referring to the year when lecturers get a slew of protections.

Layoffs. Hiring slumps. Overwork and under-training. These trends are endemic among UC unions. Many people, including Rotkin, say that if unions are to survive and flourish, they have to start looking past the bargaining table.

Unions: Political Movers and Shakers

A central issue, as Rotkin sees it, is union reluctance to focus on their declining numbers.

“For a long time, the union movement ignored this problem and focused on contract negotiations,” Rotkin said. “But there’s a big struggle going on, especially in the Midwest, where legislation is being passed that’s making it harder and harder to organize unions.”

Rotkin is referring to the union struggles in states like Wisconsin, fueled by the Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and widespread anti-union sentiment. But motions like that aren’t restricted to the Midwest.

“Even here in California, there’s a ballot measure to keep unions from being involved in politics. It’ll be on the ballot this November,” Rotkin said. “Unions are in big trouble, and we want to move toward more political work ­— there’s funding that we need that we can’t get at the bargaining table.”

Some union actors have already taken steps into the political arena.

“Our president [of UC-AFT], Bob Samuel, has been very active in working with government and legislators on issues relating to budgets for undergraduate education and union funding,” Goral said. “He’s trying to make sure that money set aside for undergraduate education is actually set aside for undergraduate education. This hasn’t been done in the past.”

What Rotkin said he wants to emphasize is how tied together UC students and UC unions are — they’ve got shared interests.

“There’s a common interest in making sure funds go toward education rather than golden handshakes,” Rotkin said. “We’re fighting tuition increases, making sure funds for undergraduate education go toward undergraduate education rather than things like hospitals, which are already immensely profitable. It’s ridiculous.”

Maybe next year there will be more than 50 students demonstrating with AFSCME. After all, as the April 28 protesters chanted, what will students be once they graduate?

Workers.

Illustration by Leigh Douglas

UC Santa Cruz isn’t UC Los Angeles. As a rule, UCSC doesn’t fight its workers every step of the way, bringing minor disputes all the way to arbitration like UCLA does with staggering frequency. So it’s discomforting to see UCSC going the way of its more combative southern cousin with its recent jab at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Before AFSCME’s contract with the UC expired in late September, UCSC began taking additional pension contributions out of the paychecks of AFSCME members without negotiating. Pension contributions are a mandatory subject of the contract bargaining process, so AFSCME filed an unfair labor practice charge against UCSC on behalf of the local Skilled Crafts Bargaining Unit, the targeted AFSCME unit.

The Public Employee Relation Board for California ruled in AFSCME’s favor, and an informal hearing involving the UC and AFSCME is occurring at the time of publication. And that’s the crux of this whole issue. It’s not a grey area at all. UCSC was in the wrong. They clearly violated the contract agreed upon by both parties. It’s strong-arming, plain and simple.

It’s clear to everyone that the university is in more than a little financial trouble, and that everyone must take cuts where they can. But reneging on union deals is low, especially when considering the inflated paychecks of upper-tier UC administrators (many “earn” well above six figures). Yudof maintains that such inflated salaries are necessary expenditures in order to retain talented employees.

But Yudof doesn’t keep this campus running from day to day. Our bus drivers, food workers, carpenters, electricians and medical technicians do. Weakening unions hurts workers, the UC and Santa Cruz as a whole.

It’s crucial that students recognize the vital role played by unions like AFSCME. You’ve seen them demonstrating. They’ve had a presence at almost every major student protest in the last several years. Out of all the UCs, UCSC is known for having a student body that has been overwhelmingly supportive of its unions. We can’t let that change, especially in the face of underhanded pressures from the UC itself.

Unions are in bad shape at UCSC, with groups from UC-AFT (University Council – American Federation of Teachers) to AFSCME doing more and more work with fewer and fewer people. The parallels between their situation and the plight of the student trying to get the classes needed to graduate while juggling jobs to pay for skyrocketing tuition costs should be obvious. We’re all stung by massive financial cuts. But we need to show the UC that striking at its most vulnerable members isn’t going to create a UC that we can be proud of.

UCSC is the biggest employer in Santa Cruz. It’s not a stretch from there to understand why protecting union workers is important.

AFSCME workers and students gather in front of Kerr Hall to deliver their contract request on International Workers' Day. Photo by Sarah Manley.

For video coverage of this event, check out City on a Hill Press’ section on the website: www.sctv28.com. 

About 50 protesters gathered in Quarry Plaza last Tuesday, assembled in support for International Workers’ Day, a day of action held around the world to honor labor unions and workers’ rights.

The day held additional significance due to a call from the Occupy Movement urging a nationwide general strike of students, workers, immigrants and the unemployed. Students showed solidarity with the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 3299 (AFSCME), which had members present.

The protest partially stemmed from a complaint lodged by the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), an agency charged with administering the collective bargaining statutes of employees of California public schools, universities, agencies and courts. The agency filed a complaint against UCSC on March 6 on behalf of AFSCME in response to allegations that UCSC took additional pension contributions out of AFSCME members’ paychecks without bargaining with the union (for more on the PERB complaint, see page 4).

The event opened with chants and sign-waving, but the crux of the demonstration occurred in front of Kerr Hall where AFSCME Local 3299 delivered its list of contract requests to an administrative representative, employee and labor relations manager Renée Mayne. The demands focused primarily on health care and pension contributions.

“Chancellor [Blumenthal] is in Sacramento, so I will be acting on his behalf,” Mayne said to boos from the assembled students and union workers.

Executive Vice Chancellor Alison Galloway corroborated Mayne’s statement and told reporters that AFSCME’s contract would be shown to Chancellor Blumenthal upon his return from Sacramento.

AFSCME speakers took to the bullhorn in front of Kerr Hall. Among those was Nico Gutierrez, a senior custodian and AFSCME member voicing his dissatisfaction with Blumenthal’s non-appearance.

“AFSCME has also been in Sacramento fighting for worker’s pensions and student loans,” Gutierrez said. “Over the past 10 years, Blumenthal has never come out. It’s about doing the damn right thing for once.”

Gutierrez then led the crowd in a chant of si se puede, “Yes we can/It is possible,” the motto of the United Farm Workers popularized by Cesar Chavez.

Mayne told reporters that there is mutual dissatisfaction felt by workers and the university management, but that pension plans are a challenge nationwide, as funding for pensions has fallen as need has grown.

“The university is very committed to bargaining in good faith,” Mayne said, adding that she hoped university workers and management could reach a positive mutual agreement. “UC workers have every right to express their voice, as long as their actions are in line with UCSC policy.”

Another AFSCME worker, Rosario Cortes, expressed her displeasure with Blumenthal’s absence.

“We never see him, they never want to talk to us,” Cortes said. “For the last 20 years, they haven’t given any money to pensions. We are the ones paying for us.”

The demonstration continued to the base of campus, where workshops covering topics ranging from coordinated tuition strikes to desalination initiatives were floated between the approximately 50 students gathered there. Politics professor Megan Thomas coordinated a workshop discussing the issue of student debt.

“Here’s our propaganda,” Thomas said as she handed out flyers to students and other attendees. Few union workers were present at the campus base location.

Despite the collaborative nature of the demonstration, attendance was relatively low when compared to similar rallies held at UC Santa Cruz in past years.

Students freely engaged with the minimal police presence — one student handed flyers to a police officer, who accepted them graciously.

The march continued downtown, where UCSC students Storm Thomas and Gabe Pulido read original spoken word pieces. Other speakers included Brown Berets and UCSC professors. There was a focus on the undocumented worker experience and labor-based immigration.

The day of action ended with the Reel Work Film Festival, held at 7 p.m. at the Del Mar Theatre.

Campus electrician Gary Riggs said the unit was protesting in response to questionable paycheck practices from UCSC.

“Before our contract was expired in the end of September, the university started taking additional pension contributions out of our paychecks, and pension contributions are a mandatory subject of bargaining,” Riggs said, as cars driving by honked in support. “The union, on behalf of the Skilled Crafts Bargaining Unit, filed an unfair labor practice charge against the university for taking these additional pension contributions and not bargaining in good faith.”

The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), which describes itself as a “statewide quasi-judicial administrative agency,” filed a complaint against UCSC on March 6.

“[UCSC] failed and refused to bargain in good faith … in violation of Government Code section 3571(c),” according to the issued complaint.

Riggs said AFSCME Local 3299 is currently in contract negotiation with the university, and he hopes for a fairer shake when they meet for mediation on May 7.

“We’re trying to get job protections right now for the first time in the Skilled Crafts Bargaining Unit’s history,” Riggs said. “This last year, we suffered layoffs. We had a bunch of people retire and not be replaced. So, we’re being asked to do more work with less people, and we’re looking for job protections in the form of stronger language in our contracting out article.”

Riggs said that as the contracting article currently reads, the university can lay off union employees and give their work to outside contractors with no consequences.

UCSC director of public information Jim Burns said contract negotiations between AFSCME and the UC happen at a statewide level.

“The parties have been negotiating since last September for a successor agreement, and it would be fair to say that reaching agreement over the remaining issues has been challenging,” Burns said in a email. “Because of that, the parties have mutually agreed to meet with a state mediator next week to facilitate what I’m sure everyone hopes will be productive dialogue.”

AFSCME union representative and organizer Rebecca Gilpas said that the union’s demands should not be much of a stretch for the university.

“We feel like we’re not asking for much,” said Gilpas, who has been with Local 3299 for about a month. “We’re asking for improvements in health care. Workers are already putting in enough money out of pocket, and we don’t want that to stay as is.”

Family Student Housing carpenter Orin Hutchinson said that in the face of budget problems, the university’s priorities don’t make sense.

“We’ve had layoffs in our unions, where we did have a five-person physical carpentry shop, and now they’re down to two people,” he said. “At the same time, the university is adding millions of square feet of new buildings, yet they’re actually shrinking the number of [employees] that maintain and work on those buildings.”

Riggs, who held a sign that read “Reunion with Recognition and Respect,” said the demonstration’s coincidence with Alumni Weekend was strategic.

“There’s a lot of people coming up here, a lot of donors,” he said, “and we’re hoping to have an impact and put a little pressure on the administration to do the right thing at the bargaining table.”

Hutchinson said that although the unit is small — its total membership is 47 — he is hopeful that AFSCME Local 3299 stands a chance of getting what they want.

“We are the only union that this university itself, UC Santa Cruz, bargains with,” he said. “We’re not a statewide entity. We’re local to this campus, and we bargain our own contract with help from a union negotiator. I think that one person can make a difference.”

Illustration by Jamie Morton.

A recent corruption scandal has been discovered in AFSCME local 3299, a branch of the largest UC labor union that represents nearly 20,000 patient care and service workers. According to recent reports, corruption charges have been directed at newly elected AFSCME local 3299 president Kathryn Lybarger and other staff members, including executive vice president Jessica Agost and financial secretary Ruben Santos.

Charges being brought against members of the newly elected administration include allegations of racial discrimination, election tampering and mismanagement of union funds.

“Based on what we know to be factual, the evidence is compelling,” said Kat Bedford, chair of the AFSCME 3299 Election Committee, in a report recently released to UC student media outlets. “This may be one of the worst corruption cases in AFSCME history and I hope the national union takes action before its too late.”

Lybarger, a UC Berkeley groundskeeper, was sworn in as local 3299 president on Oct. 27 after receiving a reported 66 percent voter approval rating, soundly defeating incumbent president Lakesha Harrison. However, after recent allegations, some are calling for the newly-elected president to step down.

“Its very saddening that in their desire to control the union, these individuals have caused great harm to the members of our union,” said Jannet Pascual, AFSCME 3299 recording secretary, in the report. “The claim is that they stole and misused our union’s resources for their personal gain. Union members from all across California demand that Lybarger and co-conspirators resign and that our parent union steps in immediately.”

In light of the corruption allegations, calls have been made for AFSCME international president Gerald McEntee to place the union under a trusteeship, which would allow the parent union to take control of local 3299 in an effort to stabilize the union’s finances and protect union member assets from possible corruption.

Bill Pool, a maintenance worker at Merrill College and AFSCME union member, is opposed to the idea of placing local 3299 under a trusteeship, as he claims it would allow the international union to assume power for up to 18 months.

Pool said he feels charges against recent president-elect Lybarger were brought about by ex-president Harrison and her supporters, who could not accept defeat in the recent election.

“I think that Lakesha [Harrison] is a sore loser, and that she ran the union for her own benefit, not for the people,” Pool said.

Pool recalled past instances where Harrison called on local 3299 members to strike, seemingly in an attempt to only benefit her own political aspirations within the union.

“We went on strike three and half years ago in the middle of summer when no one was here, we marched up from the base of campus in blistering heat waving signs at each other, it was basically pointless,” Pool said. “It only made sense if Lakesha Harrison was running in the next election, in which she actually was and elected to international board.”

Pool said he fears placing local 3299 under a trusteeship could help Harrison, as she has connections in the AFSCME International Board. He is calling on union members to speak out against the plans to place AFSCME local 3299 under a trusteeship by contacting international president McEntee.

President Lybarger and ex-president Harrison were unavailable for comment.

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

If there were no workers on campus, the East Field would be dry, dining halls would serve fewer customers and bathrooms would never be cleaned. If there were no workers on campus at UC Santa Cruz, the nine other UCs, the five medical centers and other UC facilities, these facilities would not function at their current standards — in fact, they wouldn’t function at all.

To say our UC workers go unappreciated is an understatement.

The University of California workers’ union, the American Federation of County, State, and Municipal Utilities Local 3299 (AFSCME), more than deserve the recently ratified contract with the UC, which includes increases in salary and retirement benefits.

The union workers have been fighting for this for over a year, and students and others affiliated with the UC should support them. In an institution where the UC regents can raise administrative salaries by 10 percent with a simple meeting vote, it’s a shame that UC laborers had to fight for a year for a 3 percent raise. It’s clear where the power lies in the UC system, and students and workers should form a united front in working for what they need.

Beneath the glamorous, endowment-winning research and academia lie employees who cannot provide for their families with their UC salary.

The documentary “Hanging by a Thread” features a UCSC food service worker who earns $20,000 less than needed as a single mother of three in Santa Cruz. She works at the Boardwalk to make up for this deficit.

Workers do not tend to students just through their jobs. In past protests, workers have stood beside us, backing us. It’s crucial we, as students, don’t let gaps in age and lifestyle separate us from the UC workforce.

The university should not pride itself on its prestigious endeavors if it does not even show concern or care for all its employees. As students, we cannot forget we are not the only afflicted amid budget cuts and rising fees. People are not dispensable.

Illustration by Louise Leong.

The largest representative of UC Santa Cruz employees announced the ratification of a new labor contract on Oct. 11 after successful negotiations with the university.

The labor representative, American Federation of County, State, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299, represents dining hall employees, patient care providers, maintenance staff and custodians.

AFSCME service workers and patient care members supported the ratification of the new labor contract overwhelmingly, with some reports indicating a voter approval rating of 98 percent in the two regional union units.

Julian Posadas, AFSCME executive vice president, was happy with the ratification of the new union contract, which secured an increase that was left on the negotiating table in 2008.

“The union is reasonable and not demanding exaggerated increases,” Posadas said. “We are certainly only asking for wages that will keep workers out of poverty.”

The ratification of this contract will provide union members with retroactive pay raises and greater retirement benefits.

The new contract resolves the running dispute between AFSCME and the UC. The breakdown of discussion last year contributed to a series of university-wide protests by employees.

With the passage of the new contract, future peaceful labor negotiation between the UC and campus unions such as AFSCME appears feasible. In recent months numerous contract negotiations have reached amicable conclusions.

Ernesto Encinas, a chef at Merrill College Dining Hall, has been a member of AFSCME since 2003, and was pleased by the recent union victory.

“The pressure worked,” he said. “The UC got smart and finally said, ‘Let’s make a deal.’”

Encinas, who works to support his teenage daughter and cares for his aging mother, praised the recent union victory.

The new contract will provide care workers with a 3 percent pay increase retroactive to Jan. 1, 2011, and another 3 percent over 2012. Similarly, employees working in the service sector will receive a 3 percent increase retroactive to Oct. 1, 2011 and another 3 percent in 2012.

“Since I became involved with AFSCME Local 3299 in 2003, the quality of my life and family’s life has improved,” Encinas said.

Bill Pool, a campus maintenance worker and AFSCME union member, felt the negotiations between the UC and the union could have been handled in a more transparent manner.

“They just kind of popped it on us, saying, ‘This is what you’re going to get,’” said Pool in regard to the 3 percent pay increase. Pool went on to say the raise was better than nothing.

“The university is having a hard time and everyone knows that,” he said.

Encinas attributed part of the victory to pressure put on the UC by union locals, state legislatures and the strong voice of both workers and students.

“At first they didn’t want to give us anything — they were playing hardball,” Encinas said in regard to previous negotiations between AFSCME and the UC.

The patient care workers’ contract will expire in September 2012, followed by the expiration of the service workers’ labor contract in 2013. AFSCME executive vice president Posadas is confident future contract negotiations will run more smoothly as the UC now not only has to contend with overwhelming member support, but also the political power dynamic the union successfully established in Sacramento.

The ratification of the new contract has many feeling optimistic about the capacity of AFSCME.

“We have always moved forward since I joined,” Encinas said.

Food For Thought: Students and janitorial staff unite outside the Cowell/Stevenson dining hall in a stand against dining hall hour cuts. Photo by Nita-Rose Evans.

Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union and UC Santa Cruz students held demonstrations outside each of the university’s 10 dining halls last week to protest cuts to dining hall staff hours, which workers say are leading to unhealthy eating conditions.

Protesters held signs that read “Job Security is a Right” while chanting, handing out fliers, and banging on dining hall windows.

The protest was in response to Dining Services’ recent decision to cut dining hall workers’ hours, which also resulted in cuts to service hours for some campus eateries.

As of Feb. 8, late-night dining ends at 11 p.m. instead of 12 a.m.; Terra Fresca restaurant will be closed on Mondays; and Oakes Café and Owl’s Nest Café will be closed on alternating Fridays. Some eateries, such as Banana Joe’s, will expand hours.

“They’re cutting hours to the food service workers,” said Nicolas Gutierrez, an AFCSME-affiliated custodian who works at College Nine. “We have to do the same amount of work in fewer hours, which means less pay.”

According to Scott Berlin, the director of Dining Services, changes to dining hall staff hours are the result of a mandate from the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) that UCSC partake in a salary savings and staff furlough program.

“It was mandated that there had to be a salary time reduction,” Berlin said. “We weren’t given an alternative in this.”

Berlin expressed support for the workers and said that they have the right to demonstrate. However, he also said that since the cuts come from above, UCSC has little power to change them.

“I’m very sympathetic and apologetic to them,” he said. “[But] it’s not stemming from the campus level or even the department level, it’s coming from the Office of the President.”

UCSC spokesperson Jim Burns said that the cuts are part of an overall savings program, approved by the Board of Regents in July to address a decrease in state funding.

“The employees have had to be a part of addressing a UC systemwide shortfall of nearly $1 billion,” he said. “Temporary reductions in time have had to apply to all UC employees.”

Protesting workers said that cuts to custodial hours have meant that some food service workers are now cleaning.

“They’re not trained,” Gutierrez said. “Anyone can pick up a sponge, but they don’t really know how to do it.”

Berlin says that although custodial hours have been cut, this is not the case.

“They’re doing the same work they’ve always done,” he said.

During the demonstration, workers handed out fliers suggesting that dining halls have also become unsanitary as a result of cuts to staff hours.

“There is no such thing happening,” Berlin said. “We meet all health and safety codes. We’re doing all the same work. There’s nothing to substantiate that [claim].”

Osmin Cruz Garcia, who works in the Cowell/Stevenson Dining Hall, attended the protest at Cowell because of the hardships he has faced as a result of these cuts.

“My hours have been cut by 45 minutes to an hour per day,” he said, adding that that was an average cut for many workers.

Every hour adds up, especially when UCSC pays lower hourly wages to custodians than many other Santa Cruz businesses.

“We just want market-value wages,” custodian Gutierrez said.

Berlin said that cuts to the work day and financial hardship are not facing UCSC workers alone.

“It’s not just something that UCSC is doing — this is a nationwide problem,” he said. “… The economy’s not turning around and nothing says next year’s going to be any better than this year. Hopefully somebody’s working hard on some solutions.”

Demonstrators “mourn the losses in public education” and march down Bay St. to David Kliger’s home on Nov. 2. Photo by Rosario Serna.

A student speaker at the Day of the Dead demonstration donned a painted face in honor of both the holiday and the protest. Photo by Alex Zamora.

Photo by Rosario Serna.

Photo by Rosario Serna.

With skulls painted on their faces, approximately 60 faculty, staff and student demonstrators led a “funeral procession” to UC Santa Cruz Executive Vice Chancellor David Kliger’s modest Santa Cruz home on Monday, Nov. 2 to protest student fee hikes, employee salary reductions and furlough days.

This symbolic move played on UC President Mark Yudof’s recent statement to The New York Times, in which he said that being president of the University of California is “like being manager of a cemetery; there are many people under you, but no one is listening.”

Despite Yudof’s clarification that his comment was not meant to equate UC students and faculty with cadavers, 100 protesters marched on Oct. 24 to Yudof’s home in Oakland Hills with tombstones and a coffin, items similar to those brought to Kliger’s home.

In the most recent march, protesters simultaneously honored the Day of the Dead, a holiday celebrated by Latin Americans to remember deceased loved ones. Many of the service workers impacted by the campus cutbacks are of Mexican descent, so celebrating the holiday added another dimension to the demonstration.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Students (AFSCME) and a small group of students and workers coordinated the event.

One of the coordinators, a UCSC student who asked to remain anonymous, described how the holiday and the demonstration were unified.

“We are mourning the loss of jobs and the loss of accessible, affordable higher education and celebrating the strength of our struggle,” said Janet Bradley.*

A number of unions attended the event including the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), a broad national union which has a branch for teaching assistants on the UCSC campus, AFSCME, a local service union, and the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), a clerical workers union.

These protestors voiced their opposition to furlough days, mandatory unpaid days off.

A theme among the speakers and those leading the protest was unity. One speaker, a custodian at UCSC who faces a 15 percent cut in hours until February, began a chant reiterating the message: “Students and workers untied for justice!”

The demonstrators crossed the Bay and High St. crosswalks, but once they reached the main stretch of Bay St., they flooded into the right lane chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!”

Yolanda Lopez, a custodian at Stevenson and one of the many UCSC workers affected by the pay and hour reductions, discussed her reasons for participating.

“We are sending a symbolic message to Mr. Kliger that he needs to change the attitude toward workers and students,” Lopez said, as she marched on Nobel St. “It’s hurting the community.”

Much of the legislation disputed by protesters is the result of decisions made at the state level, rather than the UC level. For this reason Kliger believes that the protest was directed at the wrong target.

“I have a job here. If they want to protest my job, they should do it [at UCSC],” Kliger said. “But I am not my job. I am a person, and coming to my home is inappropriate.”

Neighbors curiously peeked their heads out from their homes as the chanting crowd snaked its way through the streets, trailed by two city police cars.

Around 6 p.m., UCSC Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Felicia McGinty notified Kliger that the protest was approaching his home. Five minutes before the protesters arrived, Kliger arrived home on his bike and was greeted by police officers who asked whether he would like to address the demonstrators. He spoke to the crowd for 10 minutes.

Following Kliger’s address, demonstrators questioned him about the UC’s Commission on the Future, which was listed in the UCSC event calendar as open only to staff and faculty, despite the fact that students were, in fact, allowed to attend.

One participant in the demonstration expressed disappointment with the effectiveness of the protest, especially in regard to the content of the dialogue. Others in the crowd noted that they thought Kliger may have become an unfair scapegoat of the UCSC budget crisis.

“I don’t think that Kliger is hiding money. He’s just the man who had to make the cuts,” said Devin Cormia, a third-year Merrill student. “We’re not in this mess because of him.”

Cormia also said that Kliger’s wife, Rachel, became upset and asked the crowd to leave them out of the protests.

“The crowd laughed at that,” Cormia said.

Soon after this interaction, Kliger and his wife went inside.

As the procession came to an end, demonstrators delivered a coffin and other funeral procession memorabilia and placed signs in the Kliger’s yard. The police took the items left. The crowd dissipated soon after.

“I wasn’t annoyed initially,” Kliger said. “But I was when I saw their reaction to my neighbors and my wife.”

One neighbor said she sympathized with the demonstration but was hesitant about supporting a march to Kliger’s home.

“I feel like it [was] too invasive,” said UCSC alumna April Welsh. “There are other avenues besides going to someone’s home.”

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of sources

Illustration by Kenneth Srivijittakar.

Ninety-six percent of over 10,000 union employees, faculty and students at the University of California (UC) have voted that they have no confidence in the leadership of UC President Mark Yudof.

The ballot was distributed between Aug. 26 and Sept. 2 by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), for the purpose of raising awareness locally and throughout the state that UC workers are displeased with their management.

Those who voted were members of the UC coalition. In addition, students were also allowed to participate, but did so minimally since school was not yet in session at most UC campuses.

Mike Rotkin, the president of the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) Local 2199, which represents lecturers and librarians, supported the no-confidence vote.

“There’s a lack of confidence in the direction Yudof is taking the university. There’s a lack of confidence in his vision of what this university is supposed to be about,” Rotkin said.

Rotkin, who is also a Santa Cruz city councilmember, a UCSC community studies lecturer and former mayor, said the voices of the UC worker community rang out with one clear message.

A precursor to the walkout of Sept. 24, the vote comes mainly in response to the Regent’s approval in July of a furlough plan. To make up for a quarter of the $813 million no longer provided by the state, the furlough plan requires all university employees to take a certain amount of unpaid work days off based on salary level.

Although each of the unions involved in the vote have various reasons for their lack of trust in Yudof’s competency, they agree on several points. Many UC employees and their representatives believe that Yudof is using the budget crisis as an excuse to move the university in the direction of his and the other regents’ priorities, at the expense of students and workers.

“There is a priority crisis at UC, not a budget crisis,” Rotkin said.

Union leaders acknowledge that the state of California is lacking funds, but say that is not the case for the UC. The $813 million UC shortfall makes up less than 5 percent of the UC’s total annual budget of approximately $19 billion. For employees, it doesn’t seem to add up that such a small overall change would require such drastic cutbacks.

“It would be prudent to have a 5 percent budget cut somehow, but I don’t know how they [decided upon] a 20 percent cut,” Rotkin noted.

Furthermore, unions argue that the UCs have funds they could use to make up for the lack in state funding — such as an estimated $4 billion in unrestricted funds — they just haven’t chosen to utilize that money yet.

Ernesto Encinas, a member of AFSCME who works at the College Nine and Ten dining hall, believes the UC is not looking enough at alternatives.

“Don’t blame it on the state,” Encinas said. “There’s money within the system.”

Steve Montiel, a spokesperson for UC’s Office of the President, says the idea that there is available money that isn’t being utilized is a commonly held misconception.

“It’s a myth that there is some source of uncommitted funds,” Montiel said, noting that “unrestricted” is an accounting term that refers to funds that are not federally restricted, but are still internally allocated.

UC’s Chief Financial Officer Peter Taylor said the budget is similar to a checking account.

“You might get paid on the 15th of the month,” he said, “and that cash comes in and on that day it looks pretty good, but the fact of the matter is you know there’s a mortgage bill coming, there’s a tuition bill coming, there’s a Mastercard bill coming … that money is committed.”

The UC budget isn’t only used for direct campus funding. It covers a wide variety of operations including UC medical centers and a vast web of employee pensions and benefits. Because of these various costs, what may appear to be a pile of money sitting in the bank is, in fact, very fluid according to the administration.

Nora Hochman, an organizer for the CUE Local 10, thinks that even if there is a lack of funds in UC, Yudof could pursue better ways of managing the budget without jeopardizing the University’s mission. She said he could spend more energy on lobbying the Legislature for a permanent higher education fund.

“There are a lot of alternatives,” Hochman said. “But they require political will. Instead he took the easy way out and is taking the money off the backs of students and workers.”

Union leaders say that since the vote, not much has changed. Certain unions are currently in the bargaining process with the administration over furlough programs and compensation. The Office of the President has generally dismissed the no confidence vote because fewer than half of all UC workers voted. Since the main purpose of the vote was to raise awareness, workers are hoping that more students will learn about the issues and become involved.

“The next step,” Rotkin said, “is likely in the hands of students.”

Exasperated, University of California employees took to the polls to express their frustration with UC President Mark Yudof.

The informal, democratic process began Thursday when concerned union employees gathered in a tent at the Bay Tree Plaza. Organizers asked interested and passing faculty members if they would like to cast a vote.

The ballot took voters only a couple of minutes and asked faculty if they had “Confidence” or “No Confidence” in Yudof’s performance so far. The polling took place on UC campuses statewide.

Ernesto Encinas, a cook for the College 9/10 Dining Hall and active union member, helped organize the event and recruit voters. He expressed distaste for upcoming furloughs, hour reductions and layoffs targeting a large number of university workers, in addition to fee increases for students.

“These guys have no compassion,” he said. “They have no heart and no soul, no heart and soul. And it greatly impacts our lives. That’s why we’re doing this. This is a democratic way of voicing our concerns and bringing them to light.”

The vote was planned by UC workers and union members in response to the furlough plan which will go into effect this fall for professors and non-union workers. The plans have yet to be accepted by the unions that work with the University of California.

The proposed plan would result in an increase of both voluntary and involuntary vacation days and effective pay cuts of 4% and up for many employees.

The vote was a coalition effort between several unions on campus. These unions included AFT, which represents librarians and non-senate faculty, CUE, which represents clerical workers, UPTE, which represents technical employees and AFSCME, which represents custodial and food staff, as well as bus drivers.

UCSC Reference librarian Ken Lyons is concerned about how layoffs both in the classroom and in the library will affect students. Lyons, also an AFT contact, stepped out of his office on a slow summer afternoon at McHenry Library to show his support in the Bay Tree Plaza.

“With the layoffs that have been put into effect, what that’s going to mean is that there are going to be fewer classes,” Lyons said. “What classes there are will have more people in them. There will be more competition for classes, which means its going to be harder to get your required classes, which means it’s going to take you longer to graduate… which means you’re going to pay even more for your education.”

Peter King, Director of Media Relations for the University of Califonia Office of the President, called the vote “just a political stunt” that “has no meaning.” He believes it is only a distraction from the union’s negotiation process, which ends Wednesday, Sept. 2nd He insists the cuts have been across the board and as fair as possible.

“We want to get through this,” he said. “We want long term solutions, but it doesn’t help that these unions don’t want to negotiate and don’t want to take their portion of the pain.”

Many workers say they have taken all of the pain they can. Yrene Marquez, a food service worker worried about her own job security, came to cast her vote. Marquez is frustrated that she not been getting the hours she believed she would get when she started in February. She saw her workweek go down to 30-35 hours a week in July, and it has been decreasing ever since.

“I was under the impression that there would be curtailment during the summer, but not to this extent,” she said. “To go from 40-45 hours a week during the school year to 6 hours a week during the summer is pretty ridiculous. I’m not going to be able to pay my mortgage. I’m not going to be able to work here anymore.”

Voting can be done online by interested faculty at upte.org and will continue through Wednesday, Sept. 2nd.