Illustrated by Leigh Douglas

A ten-day long labor strike by workers at Raley’s grocery stores in Santa Cruz County ended on Nov. 14. Successful negotiations between Raley’s management and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) preserved previous concessions from a prior union contract made in 2008, as well as cost-cutting measures instituted by the company.

The UFCW organized the strike after 15 months of bargaining with Raley’s over proposed changes to employee healthcare and medical benefits for retirees.

Both management and the UFCW expressed satisfaction with the settlement reached this month. But according to representatives from both parties, the gains made were possibly a product of the pre-strike discussions and the approaching holidays, leaving untouched the fundamental conflict of interests between Raley’s’ management and the UFCW.

According to Raley’s management, the company was already suffering prior to the strike because market conditions have changed since the last negotiated contract in 2008.

“Since then, more than 240 non-union retail outlets were either built or expanded specifically to sell groceries in Raley’s territory,” said John Segale, the public relations spokesperson for Raley’s. “Being union, we’re paying $25 an hour, where Walmart is paying $9 an hour.”

Raley’s management said competition with non-union outlets like Costco and Walmart was forcing it to seek cost savings. Raley’s management also stated they were losing millions of dollars a year before competition increased.

Mike Henneberry, representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union 5 (UFCW Local 5), which represents San Jose, Santa Cruz and other nearby cities, held a different view.

“They said they were losing millions of dollars, but they never verified that,” Henneberry said. “I attended a limited number of bargaining sessions and what I got from them is they are returning profitability. They’re not going out of business.”

The negotiations held prior to the Raley’s strike went on for over a year. Neither side was willing to capitulate to the other’s demands, resulting in the strike.

“We absolutely had to have cost savings,” Segale said, “and we were not going to cave until we were able to get those.”

Mike Henneberry said the situation ended quickly because Raley’s recognized they had missed a chance to negotiate successfully prior to the strike.

“I think they realized after a while they had shot themselves in the foot,” he said, “and they realized they better fold their tents and get to a settlement.”

Segale had a different opinion of why the strike ended after only ten days.

“Thanksgiving was coming up, Christmas was right behind it, and [the strikers] were realizing they were about to lose a significant amount of their income,” Segale said. “It was incumbent for both parties to come together and see if we could reach an agreement.”

The strike —the first in Raley’s 80-year history — concluded on terms acceptable to both sides. The exact terms of the agreement will not be released until after employees have been informed of the details, but both Raley’s and UFCW representatives have expressed satisfaction with it.

“Customers are pleased to have their store and be able to shop without being abused or chastised by strikers,” Segale said.

Jacques Loveall, president of UFCW 8 said in the Sacramento Bee that the preservation of the employee healthcare plan “is an extraordinary accomplishment for our members and our retirees.”

In a statement issued after closing negotiations, Loveall expressed hope that management and labor would be able to work together, and said, “Now is the time for all of us to come together and get back to work serving the customers who supported our cause.”

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.

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.

Illustration by Muriel Gordon.

T-shirts and sweaters made by Alta Gracia sit on a display at the Bay Tree Bookstore. UCSC is one of over 350 universities that carry apparel made by Alta Gracia, a factory that produces university apparel and pays its workers a living wage. Photo by Prescott Watson.

“A year ago, in January, I had to leave my house. The distance made me and my husband separate. To be able to work I had to stay in another town from Monday through Friday evening. My kids were dispersed. Only one was living with me,” Maritza Vargas* said, speaking in her native language of Spanish. “The money I earned was so little that it only sufficed for us to eat.”

As the only breadwinner in her family and a mother of five, Vargas had struggled to make ends meet. But her life changed for the better, she said, thanks to Alta Gracia.

“Before, we had three people to a bed. Not anymore,” Vargas said. “My kids are all with me with their own spaces. I rejoined my husband and now we live in a big house and are very comfortable. My kids are able to have an education now. This is an achievement. What happiness.”

Vargas is one of 140 workers at the Dominican Republic’s Alta Gracia clothing manufacturer — the first and only factory in the world that supplies living-wage, union-made university logo apparel.

Alta Gracia apparel has been sold at UC Santa Cruz’s Bay Tree Bookstore since November of last year.

Alta Gracia is one of 30 subsidiary factories of Knights Apparel. The leading apparel supplier distributes to 350 universities in the United States. Knights Apparel Co. started in 2000 and is located in South Carolina.

The company’s union contract with Alta Gracia workers started in February last year, at the same time the factory re-opened.

Previously the factory that is now Alta Gracia was under Korean-owned BJ&B, which made apparel for Nike and Reebok. After being pressured by United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) to let the workers have a union, the sweatshop factory closed in 2007, moving its labor to countries where workers are paid lower wages.

When it reopened, Alta Gracia established a new business model of paying workers living wages. It is yet to be seen whether or not this model will continue to expand and attract other companies, but Knights Apparel has already made a positive impact in the lives and community of citizens in the Dominican Republic.

Joana Leonido, second-year environmental studies major at UCSC and member of USAS was one of seven students from across the nation to visit Alta Gracia and live with union president Maritza Vargas for a week. Leonido described Vargas’ new house. Although her residence would be considered meager in the United States, to Vargas, her modest home is an improvement from her previous residence.

“The first floor is a furniture store,” Leonido said. “To go to Maritza’s house, you have to go up some narrow stairs, and the second floor is where the kitchen is at and all the rooms. Above that, there is another kitchen and on the outside is an office area, but it’s mainly a balcony with a small room and a straw shack. Because of the living wage they were able to afford that.”

Photo courtesy Joana Leonido.

Setting a Living Wage

The factory, located in the poverty-stricken town of Villa Altagracia, is not only the main source of employment for its residents, but pays a living wage 3.4 times the minimum wage in the Dominican Republic (DR). The Dominican Republic’s minimum wage is 85 cents, while Alta Gracia pays a living wage of $2.83 an hour.

Employees work Monday through Thursday, nine and a half hours a day. On Fridays they work six hours.

The idea to start a model factory was both for business and personal reasons, Knights Apparel CEO Joe Bozich said in an e-mail.

From a business perspective, Bozich said that current studies suggest that consumer demand for cause-related product is increasing and therefore investing in an experimental model was a good idea.

“The challenge we had to address was how to create a viable business model … that would enable us to pay our workers a living wage and respect their rights and dignity,” Bozich said. “We can do this because we are willing to take a smaller profit on each garment.”

Bozich was also influenced by personal difficulties in his life, as his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis a decade ago also served as inspiration for him.

“A series of events in my personal life led me to reflect on how fortunate I have been,” Bozich said. “It made me think about people going through the same tribulations I went through, but who did not have the resources to get the help I was able to.”

With both causes in mind, Knights Apparel adopted the living wage analysis set by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC).

The WRC is an independent organization created by the USAS. The USAS has more than 250 chapters across the United States and Canada. The WRC monitors labor rights of workers who sew apparel sold in the United States.

The analysis studies families’ basic needs ranging from food to health care and transportation.

Outside the United States, many developing countries spend 50 percent of income on food. While average income spent on food in the United States is 4.5 percent, in the Dominican Republic it is 38 percent.

Progress in developing countries is something that has pushed Knights Apparel to take the lead in starting Alta Gracia.

“So our cause is freedom from poverty through job creation, living wages, and education,” Bozich said, “and we decided to start this cause related product in the DR because we wanted to test the theory that people will support a cause related apparel brand.”

Alta Gracia is only one of the many factories Knights Apparel owns, and is the only one to adhere to these standards.

Bozich did not comment directly as to the reasoning behind Knights decision not to start the model factory in the United States, considering the 9 percent unemployment rate.

“We decided to locate our factory abroad because most of the clothing worn in the U.S. is made overseas,” Bozich said.

Bozich said that the goal of Alta Gracia has both the worker and consumer in mind.

“We felt that it was important that we price the product so that we were not asking the consumer to pay a higher price than other brands,” Bozich said, “even though we are paying over 340 percent higher wages then we are required to pay.”

Even though many Knights Apparel factories, like many garment industries, remain in sweatshop conditions, Bozich did not address whether this model can start spreading among the rest of Knights Apparel’s factories but pointed to the fact that this factory is still an experiment.

“We hope that Alta Gracia is successful enough that we can open up additional factories in many other countries,” Bozich said. “But the project is less than one year old and ultimately its success and growth will be determined by consumer demand and support of a brand like this.”

Illustration by Muriel Gordon.

Educating the Consumer

Industrial countries such as the United States are able to outsource due to trade agreements with a majority of developing countries.

The Dominican Republic entered in a free trade agreement with the United States in 2007, under the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). This agreement between the United States and seven countries in Latin America has eliminated trade barriers and tariffs.

Andrew Schrank, professor of political science and sociology at the University of New Mexico, specializes in Latin American political economy. He has published articles about the Dominican Republic labor policies and ministry as well as its foreign relations and agreements such as CAFTA.

Schrank said that part of the reason Alta Gracia was possible was because in the past two decades enforcement agencies in the Dominican Republic have tripled and are now run by degree-earning professionals. Many of these agencies help those who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer when trying to file a complaint.

“For all of its problems, the Dominican Republic is kind of exceptional,” Schrank said. “Over the past 20 years, domestic and international pressures really have improved their industrial and labor relations system.”

However, Schrank said that this is “not revolutionary change” for this model, given that Alta Gracia is only one small factory.

“It’s too easy for Nike, or [any other factories] to shift production to places where cost is even lower,” Schrank said.

In this sense, the Alta Gracia living-wage model becomes the exception by going beyond complying only with labor laws.

UCSC community studies professor Mary Beth Pudup points out that most factory owners compete on the basis of price and Alta Gracia is part of a competitive advantage goal.

“They’re making clothing to be sold in elite universities where the wages they’re paying are part of the marketing appeal,” Pudup said. “For this to be a global movement, it requires educating consumers, and that’s a pretty big hill to climb.”

Courtesy of Joana Leonido.

Defying Sweatshop Conditions

Sweatshop conditions foster problems such as illegal child labor, human trafficking and immigration issues, as well as physical and societal problems that extend to disintegration of families.

Alta Gracia worker Maritza Vargas, who worked previously under BJ&B, said she worked in sweatshop conditions for 18 years.

“We suffered physical and verbal maltreatment,” Vargas said. “Sometimes the supervisors would close the doors and no one was able to go out until we finished certain orders. On one occasion, a worker in desperation to leave threw herself over a fence.”

In desperation to find jobs after BJ&B closed the factory, some workers from Villa Altagracia fell victim to human traffickers who promised them jobs. Maritza Vargas said she knows two women who were tricked into believing they would be working in an in-home care facility taking care of the elderly or children in countries like Spain. In reality, the two women were raped multiple times, after being sold in Istanbul.

“[The women] were left locked in a room,” Vargas said. “It had a computer and luckily they were able to reach people who had my contact. Then we contacted the Dominican Republic embassy in Istanbul until the police were able to find them.”

Vargas said that both workers had to have psychological help when they were found and brought back to the Dominican Republic.

“They would not come out of their house,” Vargas said. “But little by little, with help, they started adapting again.”

In having enough income to provide for their families’ basic needs, workers no longer have to leave Villa Altagracia for alternative jobs. This decreases the possibility of being trafficked, Pudup said.

“Anything that improves the working conditions and the chances for better lives at the grassroots level throughout the world, and even this country, will help undermine the economic basis for human trafficking,” Pudup said.

Theresa Haas, director of communications for the WRC said that Alta Gracia apparel is the only apparel officially endorsed by the WRC. The endorsement is part of the tag attached to the apparel.

The WRC representative in the Dominican Republic is a Brown University graduate who lives in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s capital, and visits the factory once every two weeks.

“Part of the visits includes review of payroll records to ensure that the living wage is being paid at the rate that it should be,” Haas said.

Prior to the opening of the factory or any type of hiring, each worker goes through basic health training and training about how to file a complaint.

Additionally, before and after the start of the factory, Alta Gracia was reviewed by Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network (MHSSN) — a volunteer organization of health and safety professionals that ensure safe working conditions. One of the published articles posted under the MHSSN webpage states that Knights Apparel has been active in addressing hazardous issues brought up by MHSSN.

The WRC also works on a complaint basis in terms of addressing any type of worker allegation.

“We conduct an investigation to verify the complaint and we communicate with the brand, with the factory, with workers, and worker representatives, and we develop corrective action plan,” Haas said. “We also publish reports of all of our investigations.”

Exceptional working conditions in Alta Gracia include not having a hired supervisor. Knights Apparel chief operating officer (COO) Donnie Hodge said that the only manager there oversees through an operational standpoint.

UCSC student Joana Leonido described the manager’s work.

“The manager maintains that they meet the quota for the day,” Leonido said. “He takes care of orders, money, he works with payroll and makes sure everything goes smoothly. He mostly addresses anything by the union leaders who are the ones working with all the workers.”

With the working conditions the factory workers are given, trust can be built without implementing hierarchy, Hodge said.

“When I first went to the Dominican Republic to establish this factory … I said, ‘Every party involved in this has to be willing to be good to the project ahead of their individual needs,’” Hodge said. “There is no reason I should have to be paying supervisors to tell people to do their jobs. Working together you must ensure that the product coming out of the factory is a great product. We have a shared responsibility — all of us. It is not manager over worker.”

Illustration by Muriel Gordon.

Universities Buying into the Model

Loud Bachata music plays over air fans rumbling in the background as the 140 workers sew apparel, cut textile, apply logo design and pack product.

“The workers know one another,” Leonido said. “They have a sense of community.”

Leonido described the working area as she showed pictures of the different work stations. At the cutting of textile area, workers use metal gloves as a safety precaution to the sharp blades of the cutting machine.

In one of the pictures, a group of workers work specifically with one apparel style. The factory has a very high ceiling where bright white lights hang. Plastic-wrapped product boxes are stacked up on the sides of the factory.

The Alta Gracia factory is the only inhabited building of 12 buildings located in the free trade zone of Villa Altagracia. Zona Franca is written on one of the street signs, signaling the border of the free zone on one of Leonido’s pictures.

While some workers take motorbikes to work, many walk 20 to 30 minutes, a distance Leonido compared to walking from Oakes College to Stevenson at UCSC.

Leonido was able to visit many of the workers’ houses as she traveled through the dirt roads. She noticed some of the village’s infrastructure.

“The sewer system is outside on the side of the road … [and] kids play in that,” Leonido said.

Many of the houses Leonido visited were on top of hills. She described some of the new materials affordable to many of Alta Gracia workers.

“Because of the living wage, they have cement floors,” Leonido said. “Before, they had dirt floors. Some people bought outhouses. They were so happy with that. They were proud.”

Joana Leonido’s first-hand experience inspired her to spread awareness in support of fair labor through this brand and hopes to establish a USAS chapter at UCSC.

Leading an unofficial meeting in January, Leonido said that many people do not realize the extent of the problems.

“This is an issue that a lot of people overlook because we don’t see the people,” Leonido said. “We forget about the struggles in developing countries. As students who are lucky to get an education at this university, it is important for us to [spread awareness] because in knowing that people out there struggle, we as students have leverage to change that.”

In effect, one of the group’s immediate goals is to increase demand for Alta Gracia apparel at UCSC’s bookstore. The unofficial group’s actions have been classroom presentations and tabling at Quarry Plaza.

“After presenting to the Student Union Assembly, a resolution passed through University of California Student Association to officially support living wage apparel,” Leonido said.

Two years before the factory opened in February last year, Knights Apparel CEO Joe Bozich, and COO Donnie Hodge spoke periodically with many bookstore managers in order to see if they would support this brand. Bay Tree Bookstore executive director and member of the UC Code of Conduct Committee Bob McCampbell said many were excited with this idea.

Hodge said that in providing university apparel, they try to be in compliance with students’ concerns.

“We are very active in social compliance,” Hodge said. “It is specifically addressing the need identified by students in the university campuses — that they would like to have a brand that defines this living wage.”

Bay Tree Bookstore, like the rest of the UC bookstores — except for Berkeley, which is under Follet Company — is an independent bookstore, meaning it buys directly from Alta Gracia. Barnes & Noble and Follet act as the middlemen, buying from Alta Gracia.

McCampbell said that of the Alta Gracia apparel bought in November last year, only 33 percent has been sold.

McCampbell said that some of the reasons for why Alta Gracia’s apparel does not sell as well as other brands even though it is similarly priced lies behind its lack of variety in products and better logo design.

“They’re not flying out the door,” McCampbell said. “It is not a full-blown operation [and the factory] is still requesting a higher minimal order than we’re accustomed to.”

Regardless, McCampbell said that the bookstore will continue pushing this apparel and will continue to support the brand. He is currently waiting to see the new designs even though the factory has not yet hired a sales representative, who would be in charge of presenting the physical material to its suppliers.

UCSC’s second order will be of $25,000.

Courtesy of Joana Leonido.

The Viability of the Alta Gracia Model

In order for the model to have a “demonstration effect,” activists need to show how market and labor strategies can work efficiently and simultaneously, UCSC community studies professor Mary Beth Pudup said.

“Genius is to combine the shock in labor politics, improve working conditions, benefits and pay with a market that is willing to absorb this cause,” Pudup said. “What would be terrific is if paying living wages becomes a competitive advantage.”

Schrank, professor at the University of New Mexico, credits the country’s “tremendous stretch” in labor enforcement.

“The Alta Gracia factory is part of that … in a symbolic way,” Schrank said.

For Schrank, a real and expansive change needs to start with the enforcement and fortification of the government’s labor policies in any country.

“The real game changer is getting the labor ministry to change labor laws, rather than fighting plant to plant battle,” Schrank said. “A better bet is putting your energy into trying to force these countries to comply with international obligations.”

Because Alta Gracia is the only unionized and living-wage factory and endorsed through the WRC, it also draws light to the hundreds of factories worldwide still under minimum wage or sweatshop conditions.

Joana Leonido says that this may create confusion for consumers in choosing to support Alta Gracia.

“That’s one argument against Knights Apparel because it isn’t all sweatshop-free like many other companies, but at the same time it is the only one that started this model,” Leonido said. “If we support Alta Gracia, it is going to be a model for other companies to create living wage factories.”

Universities across the nation are working in similar efforts to keep this living-wage factory running. “Will College Loyalty Embrace ‘Living Wage’ Sweatshirts?” is the title of Georgetown University’s professor John M. Kline’s research report published in August of last year. The report, which examines Alta Gracia, exposes the possibility for other apparel factories’ momentum to turn to Alta Gracia’s example and change the way they address human rights and labor.

“The approach goes above and beyond the labor standards required by most university licensing codes, marking a path toward a more humane and sustainable way out of poverty for apparel workers,” Kline said in the article’s abstract. “If enough consumers care, corporations could be challenged to engage in a ‘race to the top’ to brand products based on good workplace conditions rather than an association with famous celebrities.”

Leonido acknowledges the high unemployment rate in the United States, but said the Knights Apparel model has the potential to spread.

“I feel that [Knights Apparel] is stepping up to other companies in saying that living wage in a developing country can work,” Leonido said. “But I do feel that if that succeeds, Knights needs to bring this model back to the U.S., because we need it here.”

*Maritza Vargas’ quotes have been translated by the writer.

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.

State Senate Bill 1070 has opened up new discussion over old questions about illegal immigration, human and worker’s rights, and AB540 students, both nationwide and in Santa Cruz.

Arizona’s recently-passed SB1070 bill allows police officers to request identification and immigration papers from any person based on probable cause of undocumented status. Opponents are outraged, and the Latino community is particularly vocal in its concerns.

The circulating fear is that the new law will simply encourage officers to stop any nonwhite passersby, effectively allowing for racial profiling.

Watsonville protest raises awreness about Arizona bill SB1070. Photo by Andrew Allio.

A Day for the Workers

A crowd of hundreds watches as a man climbs onstage, and listens as he grips the microphone, screaming, “We have to take the crisis — the attempt to take away our rights in Arizona — as an [opportunity] to fight back and stand up for what we believe in!” Supporters cheer him on, yelling slogans in Spanish and shaking their handmade signs with agitation.

Subsequent speakers acted as if the little time allotted were not enough to convey the importance of the issue at hand. Some forgot to leave space between their mouths and the microphone.

This is the scene at which, once again, people have gathered in Watsonville’s central plaza on May 1 to bring immigration and labor issues to the forefront and call to action California’s own political leaders in response to SB1070. May 1, or May Day — historically known as International Worker’s Day — is celebrated as a holiday in many nations worldwide, but has yet to catch on in the United States.

This year’s turnout in Watsonville was moderate, but as one of the speakers put it, “One person that comes out on May 1 is enough to send a clear and loud message to all the leaders of the world, saying we are sick and tired of laws like SB1070. We are here, and we’re not going anywhere.”

SB1070, the main issue at hand, requires that state agencies enforce federal immigration laws “if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States.”

Antonio Rivas, former mayor of Watsonville and current city councilman, called for a resolution when he spoke at the protest on May Day. He encouraged Watsonville’s city council to politically condemn SB1070.

“We are going to send the message to Arizona that we will not support this legislation,” Rivas announced on the podium. “The city council and the people have to stand together. It’s very important.”

The May Day Summit 2010 draws immigration supporters to UCSC. Photo by Andrew Allio.

May Day Summit 2010

The UC Santa Cruz campus and Student Union Assembly (SUA) also supported their own May Day action in the form of an educational conference called May Day Summit 2010, in which panelists from local groups like the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 3299 union and Watsonville Brown Berets spoke about SB1070 and a path forward.

Jonathan Fox, a Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS) professor and panelist at the May Day Summit, said there are reasons why the SB1070 passed specifically in Arizona, and explained that California can choose a different path towards immigration reform.

“Immigrants are less organized or have less elected officials in Arizona, so the [officials in Arizona] didn’t have a lot to fear in electoral terms,” Fox said.

He also pointed out the primary difference between Arizona and California’s electoral base — there is a strikingly larger young voter base in California.

In Arizona, reform towards a more pro-immigrant state is far less attainable than in California. Fox believes it can happen, especially within swing districts. He said it is important to participate in May Day protests and other public actions against political legislation like SB1070, but the main point for him is the importance of a vote — how political energy and passion are turned into power and influence in the political arena.

Claudia Magana, current commissioner of diversity for the SUA and one of May Day Summit’s main organizers, explained that she was excited to see awareness of SB1070 spreading. The bill has awakened outrage from advocates of undocumented immigrants.

“Immigration is the current civil rights movement,” Magana said. “As much as I am angry with Arizona, I want to say ‘thank you’ to them for igniting it.”

Nestor Rivera, an intern for the SUA, said political influence is being exerted through boycotts of Arizona’s businesses. The Santa Cruz city government is also being pushed to remain a sanctuary city, or one that protects undocumented workers. The Santa Cruz community has recently shown concern about the Santa Cruz Police Depatment’s partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal agency that locates, arrests, and deports illegal immigrants.

While the SCPD says that working with ICE is meant only to fight gang violence, many fear the agency will crack down on immigration, threatening Santa Cruz’s status as a sanctuary city.

After UC Berkeley was made a target for ICE raids, Berkeley — like other cities in California — made the switch to be a sanctuary city.

Section 287(g), a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, says the federal government holds the right to enforce immigration laws, and may do so through local law enforcement agencies.

As a result of Berkeley citizens’ concern over students affected by raids, local agencies ceased to enforce federal immigration laws through section 287(g). This is, however, not a legally-bound promise.

At the 36th “Annual Labor and Immigration: Past and Present” Conference held May 7-8 at Oakes College, Chancellor George Blumenthal explained that AB540 students — undocumented students attending college — are currently under attack, and that has to change.

“We need AB540 students at this school,” Blumenthal said. “Some of them have amazing stories about coming across the border and then achieving success, and I think they should be proud of that.”

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

As a way of addressing the problem, Students Informing Now (SIN), a campus-based group of AB540 undocumented students and their allies, works on gaining legislative support for both the Dream Act and immigration reform. SIN also supports and works toward retaining AB540 students at UCSC.

Michelle Romero, a fourth-year from College Ten, is the current leader of SIN and also works with SUA as its legislative liaison.

“Every day that the federal government does not work to pass immigration reform, a piece of our American fabric unravels,” Romero said. “Things like Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 pass, and families live in fear of deportation, kids are afraid to go to school, workers work under exploitative conditions, and students without legal authorization can’t work even though they have a diploma.”

At the Summit, Romero spoke mostly about the federal government bill, titled the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security Act (CIR ASAP), which was introduced in the House by Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) in December of last year.

CIR ASAP provides for a Southern Border Security Task Force, increased health conditions in detention centers, employment verifications for employers, paths to legalization, an earned adjustment program, and incorporates the Dream Act.

The Dream Act, most important for students, creates an accelerated pathway to legalization for students who have graduated high school and completed at least two years of college, military service or employment.

Author Bill Ong Hing, who also spoke at the Immigration and Labor conference, said in his speech that the compromises made by Congress in CIR ASAP were too conciliatory.

“Senate democrats, their bill — the first two-thirds of it made me throw up,” Ong Hing said. “They are as bad as you can get in terms of — well, they call for a biometric identity card for all of us, high-tech ground sensors, border commission, and doubling of the ICE enforcement budget. And this is from the democratic side of the Senate.”

He did say that the last third part of the bill, mostly attributed to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), had good parts to it.

“The question is whether or not the country and U.S. Congress have the stomach to actually push this through,” Ong Hing said.

Monning on Human Rights

Assemblyman Bill Monning of the 27th district, which includes the city of Santa Cruz, also spoke at the conference and said there’s a third piece of the puzzle that nobody is paying attention to.

“Immigration rights, labor rights, and human rights are inseparable,” Monning said.

He explained that the immigrant workforce is a scapegoat for people to blame during this economic recession, as people blame the undocumented for drawing on social services and staying under the radar. In reality though, it’s the reverse.

Undocumented workers often use fake social security numbers to get jobs, which requires that they pay taxes just like every other worker. However, they frequently do not receive social services they are eligible for, out of fear of deportation.

Monning told a story about his work with the California Rural Legal Assistance for the Migrant Farm Worker Project in the early ’80s, and a case he dealt with that sums up the human rights issue.

Salinas Marketing, a local company, had 29 mostly undocumented workers taken into a cauliflower field only a few hours after it had been sprayed with pesticides, regardless of the minimum re-entry level of 36 hours.

“They got knocked down and seriously suffered the poisoning effects of these pesticides,” Monning said.

Only half of them drove to the hospital, while the other half went back to their labor camp, fearing deportation.

“They were all sickened and vomiting,” he continued. “At the hospital, they took [the other half of the workers] out into the parking lot, stripped them of their clothes, men and women and children, and hosed them down with fire hoses like animals to decontaminate them.”

Monning said it was unfortunate that this story is emblematic of a condition that still exists for immigrant farm workers today, and that human rights is an issue that should always be included in legislative reform.

Monning said, “What became clear through all of this was that while labor rights extend to all workers in California and the United States, the undocumented workforce and even those with green cards are compromised in their ability to try and enforce those labor rights.”

Illustration by Louise Leong.

Most Saturdays on campus are marked by low productivity, laziness and the occasional social disturbance, but this past Saturday was an exception to the rule. Academics took precedence as people gathered for a special event at Oakes College to discuss migrant labor brokers.

The Bodies, Brokers, and Borders conference caused a stir this past Saturday, April 3 by Steve McKay, researcher and UC Santa Cruz assistant professor of sociology. The conference had been a long time coming, and McKay — as organizer — was excited for its arrival.

McKay said he wanted to have the conference because it was a rare chance for these speakers to meet and discuss their topic of passion: labor brokers as a means through which migration happens.

“There aren’t a lot of people who do research on the actual brokers themselves … when I got the chance to hold a conference, I wanted to learn something new,” McKay said. “In a way it [was] sort of selfish.”

This self-proclaimed selfishness led McKay to begin organizing this event in the summer of last year. He said he loved the topic because it is relatable to every person around the world.

“We see it in the recession that the whole labor market is changing,” he said. “I have a secure job, and that used to be normal, but in this new economy I have an exceptional job, and the normal is actually the precarious.”

He expressed that more and more people find themselves in low-end jobs selling their labor for less.

This change in the market leads people to migrate to different countries in order to send remittances, or extra allowance, back to their families and secure their income.

Labor brokers match jobs to workers in every field from construction to health care. Conference attendees met to discuss the role of brokers, questioning whether they are key players in the labor industry or simply another vehicle for exploiting migrant workers.

The first speaker of the day, Robyn Rodriquez, drew on this point to say that the Filipino state encourages workers to work overseas because of the income they produce and send back to their home country and family.

“The state is a broker,” Rodriquez said. “[This] transnational migration apparatus facilitates and normalizes migration.”

Overall, she said, 10 percent of Filipinos are overseas, and they send back about $16 billion in remittances every year. The state benefits immensely from this, and so it encourages its people to do this kind of work, especially through propaganda.

“The state essentially changes the meaning of what it is to be a Filipino,” Rodriquez said.

But the Philippines aren’t the only place where this has happened. The second speaker of the day, Rob Saper, recognized the same transnational migration in a huge influx of Ecuadorians moving to Spain in the years between 1998 and 2005.

“They came in as tourists and then contracted work,” he said.

Saper put more of an emphasis on the negative aspects of the state as this move takes place.

“What’s at stake when we look at this is that it threatens the sovereignty of the state,” Saper said.

In addition to simply addressing these issues, McKay said that another reason for the conference in Santa Cruz was to provide local day labor organizers with a chance to collaborate with academics who have a somewhat different perspective.

“It connects local organizers to people who know what it looks like on a national level,” McKay said. “This collaboration is so important. This is a huge structural change in how labor markets work … and it impacts people most.”