It’s official: about 80 non-student campus food workers
have gone from part-time uncertainty to receiving full career wages
and benefits as a result of a contract negotiated between the
Associated Students of UCLA and the workers’ union.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, which represents 17,000 University of California
workers, announced the agreement on Friday after five months of
rallying for the cause and three weeks at the bargaining table.
ASUCLA, which has a student majority board of directors,
provides a variety of non-academic student services for the
university and also runs most of the campus eateries and the
Student Union.
Previously, the workers were contracted by ASUCLA through a temp
agency to occupy positions not filled by students and could be
hired and let go based on worker need.
AFSCME staff successfully urged ASUCLA to ask that the UC Office
of the President grant the workers the right to unionize, and
proceeded to negotiate full-time status for them.
“The workers are very appreciative,” said Lakesha
Harrison, president of the union’s UC chapter.
Martha Castañeda, a senior food service worker in Lu Valle
Commons, said the contract relieves the burden of employment
uncertainty for her and her co-workers.
“We are much more relaxed and don’t feel as much
pressure,” Castañeda said.
A co-worker in Lu Valle said the status earned from the contract
is just as important as the wages and benefits that accompany
it.
“Now we have more respect because we are career
workers,” said Luz Real, also a senior food service
worker.
Both sides of the bargaining table attributed the successful
negotiations to a common cause.
“We all had the same goals in mind,” said ASUCLA
Executive Director Pat Eastman. “We all believed this was the
right thing to do.”
Early estimates of the contract’s financial impacts on the
Association number at about $800,000 to cover the worker’s
new wages and benefits, though Eastman said the exact figure will
not be available for some time. The additional costs come at a time
when ASUCLA is rebuilding its financial security after
near-meltdown in the late 1990s.
ASUCLA’s total operating budget for fiscal year 2002-2003
is set at about $68 million. The association’s net income
last year was $2.3 million, but this year’s projected net
income is down to $475,000, which already factors in the
anticipated impact of the workers’ contract.
“We have a challenge ahead of us and I’m hoping that
by having a stable work force we’ll be able to improve our
service, quality and efficiency,” Eastman said.
Eastman hopes that this increased efficiency will “in some
ways cover these additional costs.”
Harrison said the contract’s signing was largely due to
student support for the workers’ rights as employees.
Various students groups had been rallying for the workers since
April, protesting ASUCLA’s hesitance to grant them the right
to unionize under AFSCME. The Undergraduate Students Association
Council also passed resolution supporting the workers’
unionization rights.
“Students played a good part in helping that
happen,” Harrison said. “They really had a hand in (the
negotiations).”
The effort was supported on larger levels as well, with Gov.
Gray Davis and former state Assembly Speaker and Los Angeles
mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa making trips to UCLA to show
their support for the workers.