Shortly before 5 a.m. Jose Lara, a 53-year-old senior food
service worker, stood by himself in De Neve Plaza holding a picket
sign outside the dining hall where he normally works from 6:30 a.m.
to 3 p.m. each day.
“I’m here to let UCLA know that I can’t take
it anymore. … Their position is of greed,” Lara said.
“I love UCLA. I love my students which I take care of every
morning. I love my job. I just cannot stand their greed.”
Lara was soon joined by hundreds of workers from the American
Federation of State and County Municipal Employees Local 3299 who
chose to walk off the job Thursday, demanding higher wages and an
institutionalized structure for job advancement.
“We are here for our families, to put a meal on our table.
To end favoritism and to get a chance to advance,” Lara
said.
Some janitors that worked at the School of Medicine started
picketing soon after they finished their shift that began at 5 p.m.
the previous day and ended at 1:30 a.m.
John King, a 59-year-old janitor at the medical school, put the
situation simply, “I just think that they’re not giving
us a fair shake.”
About an hour later, a small crowd trying to find its way to Lot
8 walked by picketers at the UCLA Medical Hospital. As they walked
past, picketers asked them if they knew they were crossing picket
lines ““ many said they didn’t know, and didn’t
care.
One person in the group held a campus map and said they had been
hired to a type of culinary work for one day. They didn’t
know what kind and were being paid around minimum wage.
“I don’t really care (about the strike),
that’s not my problem,” said 44-year-old Ernest Porter
from Los Angeles. “I’m homeless right now and I
don’t have no source of income,” he said.
“I’m not happy about it, but then again, their plight
is not my plight.”
AFSCME organizers estimated most of their 2,000 campus members
joined the strike, which climaxed in a rally at Bruin Plaza at 3
p.m.
Members of the Student Worker Front had asked students to walk
out of their classes at 2:30 p.m. so they could join in the
demonstration.
Political science student Leila Moshref said she joined the
rally after walking out of her International Relations of the
Middle East class.
“I think walking out makes a statement that we support the
workers,” Moshref said.
Workers and students marched in a circle together at the rally
holding picket signs and often chanting “Si se
puede.”
In the center of the circle, some people danced to reggae
recordings of Bob Marley and the Latin rhythms of Poncho
Sanchez.
Though it was the service workers who called for a strike, some
other campus unions also chose to walk off the job to show their
sympathy, and red shirts from the Coalition of University Employees
and colors representing other unions showed among the sea of AFSCME
green.
David Auerbach, 26, is part of the United Auto Workers and is a
teaching assistant in the physics department. He chose not to hold
office hours Thursday out of respect for the workers and said his
union has similar goals and problems as the service workers.
“We’re both employed by the university and
we’re both in a position where the university is trying to
pay us as little as possible,” Auerbach said.
But a handful of students from L.O.G.I.C. (Liberty, Objectivity,
Greed, Individualism, Capitalism) said they did not support the
workers who chose to strike, and held signs advising the UC to fire
those who did walk off the job, and telling each worker “you
don’t deserve anything.”
David Lazar, vice-chairman of L.O.G.I.C. and regional director
of the Bruin Republicans, said he thought the unions were
forgetting students if the issue of wage increases was going to be
weighed on how much someone needed the money.
“Students need to pay low tuition as much as the workers
need high wages,” Lazar said. “The university is not a
charity. This place should be run like a business.”
Senior Custodian Ender Fletcher confronted Lazar and another
member of L.O.G.I.C. after they made similar comments about the
workers.
University police officers closely watching the confrontation
intervened and separated the two.