Food service employees at UCLA ““ each making an average of
roughly $17,000 a year ““ and other service workers may go on
strike because the university continues to bargain in bad faith,
union leaders said Friday.
Labor organizers and strategists said strikes are always a last
resort for unions during contract negotiations but said if
employees for the American Federation of State County and Municipal
Employees Local 3299 decide to walk off the job, student activism
could be essential to their success.
“I think that the students could be in fact the decisive
element and factor in terms of leveraging power and influence that
could result in a positive outcome for the workers and the entire
community,” said Jose LaLuz Jr., an assistant director with
the organizing department of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s
largest group of unions.
“The critical dimension here is going to be the public
media and the possibility of mobilizing public support,”
LaLuz said. “I’m sure the administration will listen
very intently and carefully to the point of view of the
students.”
Some student groups on campus have already been working to
support the service employees and say they will stand with the
union if there is a strike.
“We are staying in contact with the workers. Whatever it
is they need, we will stay in solidarity with them,” said
fifth-year English and Spanish literature student Victoria
Preciado, who is a member of the Student Worker Front.
“The management is doing scare tactics so workers
won’t stand up for what they want. We are telling workers
that they are not alone.”
Tommy Tseng, a general representative for the Undergraduate
Students Association Council, said his office passed a resolution
in support of the workers and has been working to educate students
about campus labor issues.
California labor leaders met with students on Feb. 15 during the
Student/Labor Action Teach-In sponsored by USAC and the UCLA Labor
Center.
Tseng said the teach-in was organized to educate students about
different labor issues and to empower them with the training
necessary to be activists.
During the teach-in, Labor Center Director Kent Wong and human
rights activist James Lawson reminded participants that students
and youth have been at the heart of almost every social movement in
U.S. history.
Lakesha Harrison, the president of AFSCME Local 3299, said
Thursday that many of her union organizers are former UCLA students
and that youth activism has been integral to many of their previous
successes.
Contract negotiations between AFSCME and the university began in
June 2004, said AFSCME chief negotiator Paul Worthman.
The two parties met 26 times between September and the middle of
January before a mediator was called in to try and help reach an
agreement, Worthman said.
But there was still no agreement made.
“Each party was really firm in (its) position. We called
in a state mediator to see if the mediator could use her skills to
go in between the two,” Worthman said, adding that even after
15 days the two parties were unable to come to any
understanding.
Throughout the negotiations, university officials have
repeatedly expressed their desire to compromise with the unions and
end the negotiations.
But they have cited the state’s current budget crisis as a
reason why it is difficult if not impossible for the university to
give the unions all they are asking for.
“As long as the university continues to bargain in bad
faith, then there will continue to be the potential for a
strike,” said Brian Rudiger, an organizer with AFSCME at
UCLA.
Bargaining in bad faith can mean different things depending on
the contract negotiations, but there are certain rules that both
parties have to follow during bargaining talks, Worthman said.
“Things that have to do with worker’s working
conditions, you can’t refuse to bargain about it. You
can’t come in and say we’re not going to talk to you
about that,” Worthman said about one of the reasons he thinks
the university is bargaining in bad faith.
Worthman said talks may resume in the coming weeks.
Preciado said she is also upset because she feels UCLA is trying
to pit students against the workers that serve them.
“(Dining services has) been hiring a lot of
students,” Preciado said. “If the workers do decide to
leave, (dining services is) trying to make students scabs by making
students take the place of workers.”
“As students we should be conscious of what the workers
are doing.”
LaLuz said students should be more than just conscious, they
should be active.
“It’s important that students rally for (the
workers’) cause because it’s a cause that has to do
with simple justice,” LaLuz said.