Minimum wage laws don’t always ensure that workers will
make enough to live on. Many workers who earn minimum wage still
have to resort to food stamps and welfare checks to make ends meet.
In order to raise the bar on the minimum wage, the City of Los
Angeles passed The Living Wage Ordinance over five years ago,
taking cost of living into consideration when issuing base worker
salaries. Under the ordinance, those who have service contracts
with the city, those who require city operating permits, or those
who receive city financial assistance get a living wage. Living
wages vary greatly from city to city. In Los Angeles, an employer
must pay public employees qualifying for such a wage $8.26 an hour
with health benefits and $9.62 an hour without, according to Los
Angeles Alliance for a New Economy Director Madeline
Janis-Aparicio. But at UCLA ““ a public university controlled
by a state agency, not the city ““ some workers make as little
as $6.75 an hour. Several UCLA officials said they do not know why
UCLA does not always give its employees a wage comparable to wages
received by city workers, and many others said they did not know
about Los Angeles’ ordinance. “Maybe it hasn’t
been brought to our attention,” said Max Benavidez, special
advisor for UCLA External Affairs. UCLA, like the other University
of California campuses, has “constitutional autonomy,”
that exempts it from following certain laws and policies. This
autonomy is the reason why campus restaurants are not required to
post grades in the window like the other restaurants in Los
Angeles. But UC officials and UCLA administrators said they did not
know if this “autonomy” extends to exemption on the
living wage ordinance for workers who might otherwise qualify under
city policy. UCLA is not legally required to maintain the minimum
wage law either but has chosen to follow it anyway, said Campus
Human Resources Compensation analyst Marcene Anderson, who added
she does not know why UCLA is not required to follow minimum or
living wage policies. She added that she does not know if UCLA has
any intention of adopting a living wage policy anytime soon.

The “Living Wage” theory The living wage
specifically aims to prevent workers from living in poverty.
Ideally, the living wage would stop workers from needing public
benefits, so that they are no longer eligible to receive public
housing, food stamps or welfare, said David Runsten, who works in
UCLA’s public policy department. Runsten, who is currently
researching the impact of the living wage in Los Angeles, said so
far, the study has found living wages to be beneficial. “It
seems to me that even in budget crisis times, the university should
be leaders in terms of what they do and what their practices
are,” Runsten said. “There is no reason why the
university can’t show some leadership in terms of trying to
do what is right.” Many people said they are confused as to
why UCLA, an institution of higher learning, does not pay living
wages comparable to those used by the city to all its workers.
“I’m an alumna and I think it’s shameful,”
said Janis-Aparicio, the LAANE director. Several students said it
would be difficult to get UCLA to accept a living wage policy.
Instead, students say they try to get workers to unionize, so they
get higher wages through collective bargaining. Students held a
massive campaign last year to help unionize workers for the
Associated Students of UCLA. Through this campaign, the students
were able to get better wages and working conditions for ASUCLA
workers, said German Gurrola, a fourth-year anthropology student
and consciencia libre member, who worked to unionize the ASUCLA
workers with the American Federation for State, County and
Municipal Employees. Now, ASUCLA Executive Director Pat Eastman and
AFSCME lead organizer Grant Lindsay say that conditions are
drastically better for the newly unionized ASUCLA employees.
“Living wage campaigns are most effective when they work with
a union,” Lindsey said. By working with unions and forming
coalitions with other universities, students say they hope to
organize so they can lobby to the UC Board of Regents in the
future. “We are working from the bottom up,” Gurrola
said. “We hit up the regents only when we have the whole
campus ““ and several other campuses ““ organized. That
is when we have the power.” Gurrola cited the successful
campaign of the Affirmative Action Coalition in 2001 to repeal SP-1
and SP-2 ““ policies that eliminated the consideration of race
and gender in admissions and hiring by the UC ““ a campaign
which took nearly six years to organize.

A long road ahead In addition to campaigning for higher pay,
several students, workers and union employees say they want the
university to give workers more respect and better management. Last
week, about 40 people clad in AFSCME T-shirts went to the
Chancellor’s office, asking the university to change the way
it does business with its workers. Workers said bosses are rude to
them, complained they did not get appropriate overtime pay, and
said they feared layoffs. Executive Vice Chancellor Daniel Neuman
said he was not aware of many of the issues that the demonstrators
brought up, adding he would look into them. Some workers, like
Senior Licensed Vocational Nurse Pam Salter, said they simply want
more respect from their managers and do not even care much for a
higher pay raise. “I want to be proud of working here, but
its a struggle sometimes,” Salter said.