Since 1919
Westwood and Brentwood residents lost power at their homes Thursday afternoon.
A power outage was reported at 2:16 p.m. in Westwood, affecting 932 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers in the area and approximately 800 in the neighboring Brentwood area, an LADWP spokesperson said. Power is expected to be restored by 6:00 p.m.
The LADWP spokesperson said the power outage was due to a faulty electrical vault.
The University of California Board of Regents voted to increase nonresident student tuition by $762 per year Thursday.
The UC Board of Regents voted 12-6 in favor of increasing nonresident supplemental tuition by 2.6% on the third day of its May meeting at UC San Francisco. The increase will bring nonresident supplemental tuition from $28,992 to $29,754 and generate $28.9 million in additional revenue for the UC.
In March, the board tabled the vote after the council failed to come to a consensus regarding the tuition hike and its potential impact on international students. The board ultimately resolved to vote on the matter in May and request more funding from the state Legislature in the meantime.
UC President Janet Napolitano previously said failing to pass the tuition increase would result in a $30 million hole in the UC budget.
During the Thursday meeting, Napolitano said the regents added an amendment to allocate 10% of the revenue generated by the tuition increase to fund financial aid for nonresident students.
“Our needs are great,” Napolitano said. “Without this, we add another $30 million hole, and that will have an impact on the educational program we can provide for our undergraduate students, be they from California and be they from out of state.”
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said he is glad the vote passed because the increase will expand core funds and educational programs for UCLA. The university has had to look for new sources of additional funding due to sharp cuts in state funding and increases in the size of its student body, Block said.
“UCLA has worked hard over this time to ensure student success and to improve graduation rates, but this can only be done if we ensure there are enough class sections and seats to avoid creating bottlenecks,” Block said.
Regent Lark Park said she had deep reservations toward the tuition increase because it would hurt low-income out-of-state and international students.
Fewer low-income international students have enrolled at the UC in recent years due to the increase in tuition, Park added.
“No Offense, But” is back in your feeds with another wonderful podcast – this time about UCLA Transportation’s failing Bruin Bike Share program and about the ongoing North Westwood Neighborhood Council election. Join Opinion editor Keshav Tadimeti and columnists Lucy Carroll, Andrew Raychawdhuri and Marcella Pensamiento as they break down the failures of bikeshare at UCLA and the confusion around an election no one seems to have heard about.
Barbara Demman said she and her husband created a catchphrase while working with dying patients. As her class gathered for a group photo after her last lecture of the year, she said one of her students shouted it before the flash.
“Somebody said, ‘Yay, we’re alive, on the count of three! One, two three,’ and then everyone shouted, ‘Yay, we’re alive!’” Demman said.
Demman received UCLA’s My Last Lecture Award and gave the titular lecture Tuesday. The award, created by the UCLA Alumni Scholars’ Club, honors a student-nominated professor and gives him or her the opportunity to lecture as though it were his or her last lecture on earth.
Demman, a lecturer at the school of nursing, is the first woman to receive the award since it was established in 2010.
Demman talked about dealing with the terminal death of loved ones in the lecture. Demman primarily works as a hospice nurse for UCLA Health, serving patients who have fewer than six months to live.
Demman said most people do not want to discuss death. Those who do, she said, have often lost loved ones to terminal illness.
“Because you see, having exposure to death or (being) familiar with that, one way or another decreases some of the unknown about death or the fear that’s associated with it,” she said. “So I thought, what could I speak to? So I thought, let’s talk about that.”
Demman told stories about her experiences working with people as they die. She also talked about how to explain the death of loved ones to children and how coming to terms with death helps people find perspective when dealing with problems in their everyday lives.
“If we can have some exposure to it, and some familiarity with it, then when our loved ones are dying, we can really be there for them and be loving, you know, and create a wonderful environment and honor their wishes, rather than just being afraid,” she said.
Demman said she enjoyed being a teaching assistant when she attended graduate school at UCLA so much that she decided to dedicate her life to becoming a nursing professor.
“And that way, you know, I was at the bedside with many patients, but I thought if I could teach people how to care for others, then maybe I could impact even more people in the world,” she said.
Demman has been teaching at UCLA for more than a decade. When she gave birth to her daughter in 2018, many of the nurses who took care of her were her former students. Some of her students threw her a surprise baby shower during a lecture.
Samantha Feliciano, a former student of Demman, who now teaches a nursing theory class with her, said Demman’s positivity and passion for nursing and teaching impacted the lives of thousands of patients, students and colleagues.
“She has this like welcoming, just wonderful, profound compassion for all that she did and … all the people that she encountered,” Feliciano said. “Her passion is contagious, so I, as a student, I just felt like she made it worthwhile to learn.”
Feliciano said Demman would provide safe spaces for the training nurses while they participated in residency. Demman emphasized de-stressing and helping the nurses work through their emotions while they dealt with situations of life and death, Feliciano said.
She said the students in her nursing class would often ask, “What would Barbara Demman do?” whenever they faced a problem.
“She was like, the pinnacle of nursing,” Feliciano said. “We all wanted to be a nurse like her.”
William Cho, the vice president of the Alumni Scholars Club and a fourth-year business economic student, said Demman’s compassion was also evident in the work she did internationally, such as a running a nursing certification program in Ghana.
Feliciano said she was glad Demman talked about death, because it was something she still felt uncomfortable discussing at times as a healthcare professional. However, she said Demman appeared confident and comfortable when talking about the sensitive subject.
“It’s still ‘What would Barbara Demman do?’” she said.
Contributing reports by Sara Hubbard and Marilyn Chavez-Martinez, Daily Bruin staffers.
The Westwood Village Improvement Association is a nonprofit organization tasked with improving the state of Westwood Village. Property and business owners created the association in 2011 to provide the Village with functions the city of Los Angeles could not provide. Its board of directors will next meet July 18, 2019.
Erin Schneider, a field deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, said Westwood Connect Day, a resource fair to connect people impacted by homelessness to different services, provided 140 guests with clothing, food and hygiene services.
Andrew Thomas, executive director of the WVIA, said the association received a neighborhood purpose grant from the North Westwood Neighborhood Council to purchase hygiene kits, snack packs and supplies for homeless outreach and Westwood Access Day, an event to connect the homeless population to service providers. The association also hired Cherry Bush as the new social service outreach director for the homeless community in Westwood.
Board Chair Jim Brooks resigned from the board, and Kifishia Kawachi and Denise Garcia will no longer serve after this month. Brad Erickson, the former vice chair and UCLA representative to the board, is now serving as acting chair.
Tim Connors, an organizer for Westwood’s Far Out Fest and a fourth-year cognitive science student, said in a public comment that the 10-hour annual music event hosted 16 music groups from across LA this year. Connors said 100 groups applied to perform. The association provided funds for the event.
The Business Attraction and Retention committee discussed branding for Westwood’s Far Out Fest and guidelines for movie premieres in the Village. The committee also discussed plans for the Broxton Avenue pedestrian plaza.
The Clean, Safe and Beautiful committee discussed an uptick in crime with LAPD officers. The committee reached out to Councilmember Paul Koretz, who represents District 5 which includes Westwood and surrounding areas, to ask for an officer to be present in the Village.
The Executive Committee discussed hosting an election for the new board chair and increasing investments in the Village for next year.
The board appointed Josh Trifunovic, a co-owner of Rocco’s Tavern, to Zone 1 Board seat and Stephen Power, a representative of the W Hotel, to Zone 2 Board seat.
The board appointed Brad Erickson, Dean Abell, Jessica Dabney and Kevin Crummy to an ad hoc nominating committee to recommend candidates to fill three Zone 1 and merchant seats.
The board approved an increase in budget assessments by 3% in 2020. Thomas said the association expects to pay more than $148,000 in additional fees to maintain the same level of services this year and has allocated money for additional tree lighting. The board discussed sources to offset the increased costs.
The board approved nine guidelines for movie premiere applicants that include notifying merchants 30 days in advance and contacting all impacted businesses.
Oralia Palma, a medical assistant and union member, said she was recently diagnosed with lupus.
When she responded poorly to generic brand medication, she tried to switch brands but found her UCLA-provided insurance would not cover the expense. Palma said she felt her insurance failed to provide her with adequate health coverage, because she cannot afford the medicine that she needs.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 went on strike for the fifth time in a year over issues including insurance insecurity and temporary labor outsourcing. AFSCME 3299 is the UC’s largest employee union and represents more than 25,000 patient care technicians and service workers.
About 100 AFSCME workers marched around campus and to the Chancellor’s office Thursday. Members of the University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America union marched in solidarity with AFSCME.
AFSCME filed three separate unfair labor practice charges in response to alleged illegal outsourcing in early May, said John de los Angeles, an AFSCME spokesperson, in an email statement.
Claire Doan, a spokesperson for the University of California Office of the President, said in an email statement the UC thinks AFSCME’s efforts are disruptive and will ultimately be unsuccessful.
“It’s clear AFSCME leaders are going to desperate lengths for attention, from sporadically announcing baseless accusations against the University to calling for a boycott of commencement speakers that squarely hurts students and their families,” Doan said.
De los Angeles said he thinks the UC has yet to properly acknowledge allegations of illegal outsourcing.
Danielle Mine, a pediatric dietitian and UPTE member, said union members are striking so they can afford to keep their jobs.
“We love our jobs, we love working with the students, with our patients, with this community. So we’re fighting for them,” Mine said. “Ultimately, we’re fighting to be able to provide them with the best care.”
Palma said the contracted workers she works with do not receive insurance benefits at all.
De los Angeles said this is a common issue and it is less expensive for an employer to rely on outsourced workers since they get paid less and do not receive insurance.
“There’s a little bit of an extra cost incentive to be using outsourced contract labor and that’s what is threatening to these workers and that’s what they’re so upset about.”
A group of about 20 student workers marched in solidarity with AFSCME in response to a conflict with Associated Students UCLA’s Human Resources Department.
Alexander Ferrer, a fourth-year geography and international development studies student, said supervisors told student employees at Kerckhoff Coffee House they could be fired for striking. Ferrer said the students originally began organizing in solidarity with AFSCME but decided to organize on their own behalf after facing these threats.
“AFSCME was nice enough to write a cease-and-desist letter from their lawyers in Oakland, and they also said they were sending an organizer in person to HR,” Ferrer said.
Mine said she hopes this strike will end with a productive contract and allow union members to return to work.
“We’re hoping this is it. We don’t want to be out here,” Mine said. “We want to just go back to work.”
Contributing reports from Wendy Li, Daily Bruin reporter.
If you missed it the first time, chances are you noticed the bright green shirts and horns of striking AFSCME Local 3299 members the second time, the third time or the fourth.
The recent strikes are nothing new. On May 2, 2001 the Daily Bruin published an article covering a strike staged by 400 people in support of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The article explains that the union workers’ contracts were up, so they asked for higher wages, guaranteed pay increases every year, more health benefits and an end to subcontracting. They were also on strike for receiving a part-time salary and benefits for working almost full-time. The union represented 17,000 workers throughout the UC system at the time.
The UC system had no comment at the time. According to the article, spokeswoman for the University of California Office of the President Abby Lunardini said she was confident things would be resolved through the negotiation process.
Employees also complained about subcontracting, which is when jobs are given to nonunion-contracted workers.
“(Subcontractors) are not doing the job that UC workers are doing,” said Bob Hardrick, who was a member of the AFSCME union at the time, in the article. “We have to redo some of the things they do because they do such a bad job.”
A worker at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center at the time, Pilar Burgess, said that subcontracting and other cost-cutting measures were hurting the patients. Burgess said unclean bedding materials and subpar cleaning chemicals used were jeopardizing patient care.
Burgees even went as far to say, “They say that the UCLA medical center is No. 1, but if you see what I see, you would say we are No. 20 or No. 40.”
Both Burgess and a protest leader and custodian at UCLA in 2001, Maxine Holloway, expressed their desires to be guaranteed better wages. Burgees said AFSCME’s request for a yearly pay raise was denied because employers thought workers were taking too many sick days. Burgess also said she wished to see better health benefits, as they had been declining over the 14 years she had worked at the university.
The Bruin said that student groups such as Conciencia Libre and the UCLA Environmental Coalition contributed to the protest as well. Students from these organizations explained that it was up to the students to make a difference and help set the tone for the protests.
A third-year environmental studies student and Environmental Coalition member at the time, Greg Hom, said its up to the students to help make a difference. Similarly, Francisco Garcia, a former Latin American studies student and member of Conciencia Libre, said that the number of people present at the protests would help set the tone for the negotiations.
While Lunardini was confident in a resolved negotiation at the time, UC employees continue to strike to this day – 18 years later. Their main complaints tackle the same issues: workers’ wages and outsourcing.
Most recently, the AFSCME held a strike April 10. Employees stated the UC condoned the intimidation of workers who participated in a previous strike. The union stated the UC violated state labor laws by “engaging in intimidation tactics, retaliating against workers, and interfering with workers’ rights, among other things.” And thus, three unfair labor practices charges were filed against the California Public Employment Relations Board.
More specifically, incidents included UC administrators providing gifts for nonstriking employees, police officer intervention and a UC Davis superintendent threatening and assaulting strikers.
[RELATED: AFSCME Local 3299 files Unfair Labor Practice charge against UC]
According to the AFSCME Local 3299 website, members of AFSCME are striking due to “UC’s new and unlawful efforts to bypass the union and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to outsource Patient Care, Service, and Skilled Craft jobs to low wages for-profit companies.”
Outsourcing, which is a broader term for subcontracting, has continued to be a problem for UC workers. The AFSCME website states that because of the outsourcing there is “deep income, racial, and gender inequality throughout the UC system.”
While many of us will groan at the idea of having to take a slightly longer, more inconvenient route in order to bypass the blaring horns, we should take a second to realize that wages, health care and people’s livelihoods are something workers have been fighting for not just today, but for decades.
