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.

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 Christine Hipp.

Though the UC system may be in dire straits financially, some of its most vulnerable workers have achieved a small victory. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union ratified a wage increase for librarians in the UC system late last month.

“We believe this is a fair proposal that rewards librarians for their dedication and their hard work, while being mindful of the tough economic climate the university is facing,” said labor relations contract negotiator Peter Chester in an official statement released Oct. 10.

Aspects of the agreement include merit-based wage increases.

“An employee [would] meet with his or her supervisor and be evaluated on an objective set of criteria pertaining to the job. Based on this, the supervisor determines the merit increase,” said Dianne Klein, a media specialist from the UC Office of the President.

This increase was prompted in part by a similar increase being given to other nonrepresented academic faculty.

“The librarians, who are considered academic employees, were in effect put on the same wage schedule as nonrepresented academic employees,” Klein said. “The university’s financial crisis informs everything we do.”

UC librarians are not alone in their negotiations with the UC system. Their increase negotiations were among several union contract negotiations recently settled.

“With 12 systemwide unions and 14 local bargaining units, the university is almost constantly in labor negotiations,” Klein said.

Despite this gain, the UC library system remains on difficult terrain.

“The UC library unit is pretty small — we had about 420 [employees] last time we negotiated in 2008, and we’re down to 350 now. This is through attrition,” said UC-AFT representative Kenneth Lyons, a UCSC reference librarian who has been at the university for 10 years. “With fewer and fewer librarians, the workload has increased.”

In addition, UC librarian wages don’t measure up to other systems’ standards.

“We’re behind CSU librarians by about 20 percent, and we’re behind community colleges as well,” Lyons said.

Though the McHenry Library’s recent facelift may project a hopeful air, Lyons is less optimistic.

“There’s not as much money for materials anymore,” he said. “We were lucky enough to be able to refurbish McHenry, but they started that project 15 years ago.”

The negotiations themselves went about as well as could have been expected, Lyons said.

“I feel like both sides came to some understandings this time,” Lyons said. “They agreed there were some recruitment and retention problems in the UC library system, and that something needs to be done about that disparity. If it hadn’t been for rank and file actions to inform and get support, I think nothing would have happened.”

The negotiations were representative of a give-and-take between the UC system and the unions it deals with.

“The university appreciates deeply the AFT’s willingness to craft an agreement that recognizes the current fiscal crisis we’re facing,” said UC vice president for systemwide human relations Dwaine Duckett in a February UCOP press release.

Though aspects of the UC librarians’ contract have been hammered out, the entirety of the contract will be subject to renegotiation next September.

“We’ll be back at the bargaining table next year,” Lyons said. “The library workforce is shrinking, so it costs [the UC] less to bring us up to parity with other universities in the system.”

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.

Over 100 Teaching assistants of the UAW Local 2865 union attended the first statewide meeting under newly elected leadership. Photo by Sal Ingram

Heavy applause erupted as the 10 newly elected Executive Board members of the teaching assistants’ union, UAW Local 2865, were introduced at the first statewide membership meeting on Saturday.

Following a contentious election, all 10 Executive Board members come from the Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU) slate.

“This was probably twice as big as any meeting we’ve had in the past,” said Executive Board president and UC Irvine graduate student Cheryl Deutsch. “It’s the only venue where members get to make decisions.”

In order to make any decisions, meetings need to have quorum, over 100 members in attendance. Deutsch said they have never before achieved quorum in their local’s history.

Holding at least one statewide meeting a year is mandatory, according to the UAW bylaws. Executive Board members want to hold them twice a year, alternating campuses.

As excited TAs hit the tables in the UC Berkeley Boalt Law school classroom to cheer for their new officials, members of the opposing party, United for Social and Economic Justice (USEJ), did not share the same level of enthusiasm.

UC Davis head steward and USEJ member Xochitl Lopez said organizers gave only two weeks’ notice for the meeting, and violated by-laws. UCB is no longer in session, even though all campuses are supposed to be when the statewide meetings are held.

“The meeting was problematic,” Lopez said. “It was called to disenfranchise people from our slate [USEJ] specifically.”

An estimated 130 members attended. Around eight were USEJ members, and the rest were from AWDU. Northern UC campuses are known to have a higher AWDU membership and southern campuses tend to have higher USEJ memberships. Deutsch said members from the north were over-represented, as the meeting was held at UC Berkeley.

Soon-to-be UCLA graduate student and USEJ member Sayil Camacho won the most votes for the UCLA head steward position, but was voted out of office at the meeting because she was not an enrolled student. Camacho was accepted by UCLA in January and is starting class in fall 2011.

“I’m not just going to hand over my position because … they say I can’t participate,” Camacho said.

Camacho received emails she said were accidentally forwarded by elections committee member and UC Santa Cruz graduate student Adam Hefty. She said elections committee members are supposed to remain unbiased, but in the emails Hefty discussed her elegibility to run with AWDU members.

“It’s clear if I had been on the AWDU slate my eligibility wouldn’t have been questioned,” Camacho said.

UCLA AWDU members initially approached Hefty regarding Camacho’s eligibility and he said he intentionally made that information public by putting it on a blog and on Facebook.

“I encouraged people to get back to me with feedback and concerns,” Hefty said. “I had easier access to AWDU perspectives, being from UCSC.”

Hefty acknowledged his sympathies for AWDU and said the majority of the elections committee are aligned with USEJ.

Executive Board president Cheryl Deutsch said she told attending USEJ members that as difficult as it may have been, she hopes they were not intimidated by parliamentary procedure.

The next statewide meeting will be held at a Southern California campus and Deutsch said she thinks attendance will increase.

“It was a great feeling to achieve that quorum,” said Brian Malone, UCSC graduate student and former campus head steward. “It’s just something that [hasn’t happened] … Even though statewide meetings are required, they weren’t taken seriously.”

Despite Camacho’s situation, she appreciates the interest of union members.

“Having two slates is a good thing,” Camacho said. “It means people are interested.”

“It’s the biggest change our union has seen,” said UCSC graduate student Sara Smith, who was recently elected northern vice president on the Executive Board.

United for Social and Economic Justice (USEJ), ran against AWDU and is comprised of many incumbents from the previous Executive Board and campus branches of UAW Local 2865.

Filiberto Nolasco, UC Santa Barbara UAW head chair and USEJ member, said AWDU caused many problems in the election, and hopes the union has the integrity to address those issues. The election faced poll station shutdowns, biased election committee members, intimidation tactics and suspicious envelopes, Nolasco said.

“There’s a lot of diverse opinions on how to run the union and these differences need to be recognized,” Nolasco said.

The new Executive Board held its first meeting on Sunday and is planning a meeting open to all union members this Saturday.

AWDU plans to work with other unions and UC workers, in addition to fostering a network between campuses within UAW Local 2865.

“Now there’s a lot of potential to transform our union [into one] that’s more effective in winning stronger contracts,” Smith said.

In addition to teaching two sections for a class called U.S. History After WWII, UC Santa Cruz history graduate student Sara Smith is running for UAW Local 2865 Executive Board’s northern vice president as a member of Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU).

“This is the biggest crisis our union’s ever had,” Smith said.

AWDU is one of the two competing caucuses, similar to political parties, and was founded in 2009 when they felt UAW Local 2865 leadership wasn’t doing enough to combat budget cuts.

Smith said the 10-person UAW Executive Board currently makes decisions for 12,000 members. AWDU wants to increase democratic participation in decision-making among union members by spreading out the power concentrated in this board.

In response to rise of AWDU, the United for Social and Economic Justice (USEJ) caucus was born and is comprised of many incumbents.

“Current leadership [in UAW 2865] gave themselves a name to run against us,” Smith said of the formation of the USEJ.

She said USEJ has no presence at UCSC.

Daraka Larimore-Hall, executive board president, UC Santa Barbara sociology graduate student and TA, is running for re-election as a USEJ member. He said USEJ is responsible for bring 20,000 laborers into UAW.

“Our group was instrumental in making this happen,” Larimore-Hall said.

Adam Hefty, a UCSC election committee representative and graduate student, said that during Saturday’s ballot count, three of the six present election committee members voted to stop the count and adjourned the meeting, leaving the votes from UC Berkeley and UCLA uncounted.

“The election committee felt they couldn’t continue [to count the ballots] because of the atmosphere of hostility at the vote count,” Larimore-Hall said.

Hefty did not agree with the three election committee members who decided to stop counting.

“There was no pause for me to be able to vote or understand the motion that was going on,” Hefty said. “Three of six doesn’t constitute a majority.”

Smith said AWDU won at UC Davis, UC Irvine and UCSC, and received 95 percent of the votes at UCSC.

Even though USEJ won at UC Riverside, UCSB and UC San Diego, she said AWDU had a good chance of winning once UCLA and UC Berkeley’s votes were counted.

Both parties wanted the count to resume but didn’t agree upon terms under which the voting would continue.

On Tuesday the election committee decided counting would resume on the morning of May 5, supervised by a neutral mediator. Candidates and their supporters won’t be allowed in the room.

Smith said two ballot boxes from UCLA and UCSD were spoiled because they contained votes that weren’t concealed in the two appropriate identification envelopes. This caused Smith to fear voters were trying to vote twice or were stuffing the ballots.

Candidates from both parties said they were personally attacked during the campaign and the counting deadlock.

Larimore-Hall said he received strings of texts from AWDU supporters telling him he was going to jail because of what USEJ is doing.

“It’s absolutely disgusting the way AWDU’s been acting [since before] the election started,” he said.

Yuting Huang, UCLA graduate student and AWDU candidate for head steward at the UCLA campus level, said she was frustrated at times during the campaign and even cried.

She said she couldn’t always talk to voters after USEJ campaigners because they physically blocked her by walking voters to the polls.

“Many people will vote with very little information,” she said. “I felt people wanted to listen to both sides. Elections shouldn’t be run like that.”

UC Davis graduate student Xochitl Perez is running for the Executive Board’s northern vice president position with USEJ against Smith, and disagreed with aspects of AWDU’s campaign.

“We [in USEJ] attempted to focus on our record, while AWDU focused a lot on harassing our candidates by urging them to step down,” Perez said.

Perez said she was verbally insulted by two male AWDU candidates during the three days of voting and nobody stopped them.

“This conduct is not consistent with AWDU’s message,” she said. “This is not just running on issues. This is running a campaign of intimidation.”

During the counting stalemate, AWDU members sat in at the UCLA and Berkeley UAW offices and held a rally at UC Berkeley.

After teaching her Monday discussion, Smith returned to Berkeley. She said they will stay there until the ballot counting finishes.

Protesters from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers stand in solidarity with other union workers during an April 4 protest in Santa Cruz. Photo by Toby Silverman.

Photo by Toby Silverman.

A man holds a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. during "We Are One," a union workers' protest held on King's birthday, April 4, in Santa Cruz. Photo by Toby Silverman.

On the 43rd anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, participants of “We Are One,” a campaign supporting workers’ rights, organized over 1,200 events across the United States and Canada.

The rally was a show of resistance against local, state and federal government legislation curbing union rights. In many states, such as Wisconsin and Rhode Island, public service workers are in danger of losing critical benefits.

In Santa Cruz, roughly 150 people gathered in front of the county building at 5 p.m. on April 4 to rally for collective bargaining rights and demand government action against union-busting. Cesar Chavez was honored at the Santa Cruz event in addition to King.

Community members at the rally voiced concern for state and federal budget changes.

“We are working to help [Gov.] Jerry Brown get a reasonable budget in California,” protester Dorelle Rawlings said, “one that is not just cuts.”

Advocates of the movement were there to speak out against “well-funded, right-wing corporate politicians [who] are trying to take away the rights Dr. King gave his life for: the freedom to bargain, to vote, to afford a college education and justice for all workers, immigrant and native-born,” according to the “We Are One” organizing website.

County supervisor John Leopold said lawmakers need to return to their democratic values and let the public decide on budget issues.

“It’s amazing to me that in Sacramento the Republican Party won’t even let you vote about whether you want to increase taxes or extend taxes,” Leopold said in an address to the crowd. “We should get a chance for the majority to express their will about how we would like to organize ourselves, tax ourselves and provide services for our fellow human beings.”

Among the supporting organizations present were representatives from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Organizing for Santa Cruz, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 521 Region 2 helped plan the rally. Region 2 represents Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties, and had a solid presence at the event.

Walt George, SEIU Region 2 trustee, said the government needs to recognize corporations, and money mongers are to blame for the financial downturn.

“It’s not the workers who caused the economic problems of our country,” George said. “Any workers should have the right to unionize. Our economic woes are not the faults of the unions.”

Santa Cruz vice-mayor Don Lane said the government must make it possible for the lowest paid workers to succeed and ensure economic health.

“Real prosperity starts from the ground up,” Lane said to the crowd. “A trickle-down approach must be rejected.”

County supervisor Leopold said the government needs to start taxing the rich and recognizing the importance of unions.

“In the time when unions were the strongest, our economy was the best in this country,” Leopold said. “A whole host of large corporations are not doing their part — they’re not paying taxes.”

Pointing to a local workers’ benefits issue, Doris Henry, Santa Cruz SEIU chapter president, said approximately 375 temporary city workers risk losing social security benefits because of a proposed shift to 401(k) plans.

“The city would be removing them from the basic safety net available to every other worker in America,” Henry said. “Let’s support our temporary workers to keep their American rights. If they lose theirs, are yours far behind?”

Vice-mayor Lane said the current economic model is unacceptable, and applauds those who challenge it.

“One powerful group in this country has put forth the mistaken idea that cutting taxes on corporations and on the people who make the most money will save us,” Lane said. “But people across the country are actively rejecting this mistaken idea.”

Illustration by Patrick Yeung.

Teachers didn’t cause the financial crisis the United States is facing. Neither did sanitation workers, postal workers or construction workers.

No, the recession was a firmly upper-class disaster. Made possible by the irresponsible and selfish behavior of big banks, wealthy individuals and the government, the state of our economy has little to do with the actions of the middle class.

Yet in Wisconsin and around the country, the middle class is in danger of having to pay for it. Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisc.) announced plans last month to get rid of collective bargaining rights for unions, which led to an immediate uproar. Eliminating bargaining rights means that non-law enforcement union workers could easily lose pensions and benefits, and suffer salary cuts, at the hands of the state. The bill would increase taxation and take away representation for millions of union workers in Wisconsin.

But they aren’t letting this happen without a fight. For weeks, union members and allies have been protesting in Wisconsin, Washington and across the nation, rejecting the step backwards that this bill would represent. Before modern unions like the AFL and CIO (now the AFL-CIO) gained real power in the 1930s, public sector workers had few rights when it came to issues like health care and living wages. The situation in the Badger State threatens to erase all the progress that has been made.

Walker and his supporters claim that this decision is purely financial, and that crippling the unions is the only viable way to restore the state’s economic health. But is an economy really healthy when a state has the power to completely cut a teacher’s pension plan?

In the March 2 article “Teachers Wonder, Why the Scorn?” The New York Times interviewed Erin Parker, a teacher who lives in Madison and will soon move in with her parents in Colorado because she cannot afford to live in Wisconsin after salary cuts. It doesn’t matter how much money a state government saves when children don’t have enough qualified teachers like Parker.

Furthermore, one of the reasons unions exist is job security. If the state can lay off whomever they choose, then even more people join the ranks of the unemployed, meaning more will be paid in unemployment benefits, and it will be harder for anyone to get a job.

And if the move really were all about saving money, there are other ways to go about this. Walker has refused to even entertain the idea of compromising with labor leaders by implementing pay cuts for state workers, who already enjoy higher salaries than most union laborers. That’s not democracy at work — it’s a sign of the growing power of the American plutocracy.

Although Wisconsin is the biggest example of danger to unions, the problem isn’t confined to those state lines. There is currently legislation in Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Illinois that would reduce union rights.

Although conservatives often cite unions as a corrupting factor in Washington D.C., in reality it’s lobbyists who have much more power. The lifeblood of Washington, corporate lobbyists represent a precious, rich few, complicating legislation to the point of virtual illegibility. All that complication adds up to millions and billions of dollars for the powerful minority and only more headaches for the working class.

If we as students hope to have a fighting chance to make a difference for the better once we graduate, we should support the protestors in Wisconsin. If we want our younger siblings and children to receive a proper K–12 education, we should support the efforts in Wisconsin. If we reject the idea that those who pulverized the economy should be able to reflect the consequences onto the middle class, we should support the efforts in Wisconsin.

It isn’t only about unions. It’s about the triumph of democracy over plutocracy.