A month after students first approached the Associated Students UCLA Board of Directors about unionizing, and hours following a rally at Friday’s meeting, the board issued a statement declaring its neutrality on the issue, meaning student employees will have to go elsewhere for support.
The formal statement issued by the board stated “although we respect the rights of all our employees to organize under the Higher Education Employer-Employee Act, the ASUCLA Board of Directors is also legally bound to remain neutral on the issue of unionization.”
It added the Board of Directors has no legal power to include students in the contract that non-student workers have, and any request for such action would involve a decision from the State of California’s Public Employee Relations Board ““ an entirely separate entity within the state government and one that the ASUCLA Board of Directors has no say in.
Any final decision made by PERB would be honored and followed through by ASUCLA.
Andy Green, a board member and executive committee chair, said he was legally bound not to comment on the board’s statement of neutrality or about unionization in general.
“I think the board’s decision is pretty clear,” Green said.
Students and workers assembled to rally to encourage the board of directors to endorse the students’ campaign for a union of the student ASUCLA employees as a part of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299.
In 2002, non-student employees within ASUCLA made the same request and joined AFSCME Local 3299. Their new benefits included a high starting pay and union representation if any workplace problems arose.
Student ASUCLA workers were not granted membership in AFSCME Local 3299 at the time, and so were not granted the same raise or any of the additional benefits.
Arely Ortez, a third-year sociology student, said this has created an unfair schism.
“We’re doing the same thing and yet we’re not getting paid for the same thing,” Ortez said, adding that union members make over a dollar more per hour than students.
According to a document provided by the board, $8.25 is the starting rate for students and the average pay for students is $9.09. It states that pay is up $1.25 compared to two years ago, and that pay should be increasing by 50 cents per hour within the next few months.
The rally Friday featured a number of speakers, including union members, faculty, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys, and Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles.
Patrick Mitchell, who has been a security officer at the UCLA Medical Center for the past six years and was one of the employees granted unionization in 2002, said he believes students have the same rights to union pay and benefits.
“They have to treat your people with dignity and respect,” Mitchell said, echoing a popular statement of the day.
“We are backing students 110 percent. “˜We’ is the union, the community, everyone,” he added.
Eventually the early morning’s rain lightened up, along with the mood of the crowd.
Enthusiasm abounded when Levine and Romero arrived.
“I came ““ on Interstate 10, in the rain, in traffic ““ out of respect for who you are and the power you represent,” Romero said.
Levine also said he is concerned that ASUCLA is now only using the student labor and no longer hiring employees who are unionized.
But not all students who work for ASUCLA support unionizing.
“Having them unionize doesn’t really make sense,” said Thai Ha, a second-year undeclared student who works at BookZone in Ackerman Union.
“We don’t have enough hours to get the benefits. Higher pay would be nice, but that alone is not enough to really consider (unionizing.) It’s pointless,” Ha said.
During the open meeting, the board discussed installing air hand dryers, capital expenditure on Web sites, new programs for the food service computers and a North Campus hardscape initiative.
They did not address the students’ request to unionize until they adjourned the meeting and moved to a closed executive session meeting in another location, which some students said concerned them.
With reports from John Guigayoma, Bruin senior staff.