I’ll admit that even as a columnist, it is sometimes difficult to make an opinion, let alone work for what you believe in.
But I am constantly inspired by the choices and actions made by fellow students.
The Student Worker Front is going on a hunger strike if the University of California refuses to adhere to the requests of UC employees. They will demonstrate that it’s a worthy and necessary act to actively stand in solidarity with your values.
Last week, approximately 97 percent of both UC patient care and service workers within the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 united in approving a two-day strike to advocate for competitive wages and fair contracts. But the strike was suddenly postponed Thursday. The UC and the State Public Employment Relations Board deemed many of the workers, some from medical hospitals and dining hall facilities, too essential to strike.
This decision further begs the question: If the UC does believe that workers are essential, why are their demands ““ equal pay and benefits for equal work ““ not met?
It is a question that the Student Worker Front, a coalition of students who support UCLA workers of the AFSCME union, wants answered. Specifically, the group wants concrete, positive action and support from the UCLA administration.
Student Worker Front is a running project of Conciencia Libre, a group founded by UCLA students in 1998 to involve students in community activism. The group actively strives to improve the labor conditions on our campus. It also visits workers at their workplaces, works toward the unionization of Associated Students UCLA workers and, now, is committing to a hunger strike if necessary.
The workers’ proposal includes an increase in the union minimum wage from $9.70 to $15 an hour and the implementation of the Steps program, which makes the provision of raises accountable to seniority.
Applying the Steps program would prevent managers from choosing to give raises arbitrarily. It would also ensure a lower turnover rate in the workforce, especially important in UC hospitals, where employee experience, skills and dependability are vital to the security and health of patients.
To Lizzy Keegan, a fourth-year sociology student pursuing a minor in labor and workplace studies and a member of the Student Worker Front, the workers deserve what they’re asking for.
“Their demands are legitimate, and there’s no reason for the UC not to compromise. They’re asking for what they need,” Keegan said.
The UC is also one of the largest employers in the state, with approximately 124,000 full-time equivalent employees and a system-wide payroll of $9.5 billion. Within each of the regional economies of its 10 campuses and five medical centers, the UC is among the largest employers. Thus, the UC has an enormous impact on the economic livelihood of the communities where UC employees reside.
It is unfortunate and unjust then, that a January 2008 study done by the Center for Labor and Community Research found that the majority of UC workers live in low-income communities and in areas with high poverty rates.
With its important standing in our economy, the UC has the ability to and needs to ensure the economic well-being of their works and families.
Instead, these low-paying jobs strain the economy, create a greater demand for public services, and induce such an environment that UC employees believe striking is necessary.
The lack of UC support for its workers is also an indication of the lack of UC support for students.
“If students aren’t there, the university doesn’t run. If workers don’t staff it, the university doesn’t run either.
“I don’t see the disconnect between student and worker life,” Keegan said.
And neither do I. They are the people who care for patients, who serve us in the dining halls, who keep our campus beautiful and running. And they deserve not only our respect but our active support.
Instead of state budget allocations, more than 90 percent of the salaries of UC workers come from our student fees and profits brought in by parking, food and the medical centers.
Equipped with our degrees and ambitions, we too shall become employees in the time span of a few years. We too shall join the workforce and more than empathize with the UC workers.
Students need to realize that the conventional association of standing in solidarity with workers and engaging in activism is not radical or negative. It is the privilege that we have as students at a university such as UCLA that creates our responsibility to use our position to help those who in turn help us.
E-mail Do at ndo@media.ucla.edu.
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