A union representing hundreds of service workers at UCLA has rejected the University of California’s contract extension offer, which would have increased workers’ wages by $2.8 million.
The rejection comes nearly four months after the UC began negotiating with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, which represents over 20,000 employees at all the UC campuses and hospitals.
AFSCME’s contract officially expired Wednesday, though workers will continue to be employed by the UC while negotiations continue.
AFSCME has also filed for impasse, which, if granted, will require a state moderator to help solve the dispute.
Union workers picketed outside of UCLA’s hospitals in Westwood and Santa Monica at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday to protest the UC’s offer.
Lakesha Harrison, president of AFSCME Local 3299, said $2.8 million is not nearly enough money to raise wages to a decent standard of living for AFSCME workers.
“A lot of our workers are below the poverty line. I have university employees that still get … food stamps,” Harrison said.
AFSCME Local 3299 has constructed a wage proposal which would set a minimum wage for its workers at $15 per hour, as well as annual wage increases and no pay cuts for health care and pensions.
But Nicole Savickas, the human resources and labor relations coordinator for the UC Office of the President, said that due to drastic cuts in the state budget, such measures would not be possible.
“Certainly we are most concerned with our lower-paid employees. But when we receive money from the state, it’s not allocated to any employee groups” such as unions, Savickas said.
Due to budget cuts, the UC’s state funding will fall more than $400 million short of what the UC Regents requested. Among the initiatives proposed was a $14 million salary increase for 35,000 lower-paid staff workers over a period of 10 years.
“We’re limited by the state budget, and we need to provide wage increases for (employees) across the system,” Savickas said.
But Harrison said that according to a study recently conducted by the Center for Labor and Community Research, the UC pays its employees between 25 and 30 percent less than the standard market salary.
According to the study, the UC would need to spend roughly $147 million more on AFSCME workers in order to make their salaries competitive with other higher-education institutions. Harrison said that the UC’s low wages have forced many of the workers to take a second job to make ends meet.
Monica Martinez, an administrative clinical care partner at UCLA, works two jobs with a total of over 72 hours per week to support her four children.
“I live in a cramped two-bedroom apartment with four children. I should not have to work a second job to survive,” Martinez said.
Howard Pripas, the UC’s executive director of labor relations, said in a press release that he was disappointed in AFSCME’s rejection.
Pripas said the university’s offer would have instituted a 4.5 percent across-the-board wage increase, as well as an additional 13.5 percent wage increase for certain employees.