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The eight remaining staff members at the UCLA Labor Center will have fewer resources to work with, due to the large budget cuts implemented by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The 2005 state budget, passed on July 1, cut funding for the labor center by $3.8 million – two-thirds of the total operating budget. Although funding for the center was approved by the state legislature, the governor cut its budget in a line-item veto.

The labor center serves as a resource for information regarding workers’ issues, and offers internships with labor unions and community organizations.

The center also oversees the Labor and Workplace Studies minor, a program that will not be affected by the lack of center funding, said Kent Wong, director of the labor center.

The center will do its best to maintain programs, though some will eventually have to be reduced. Wong is not yet certain which programs will go.

Tommy Tseng, a fourth-year political science student and former intern at the center, said he believes it would be a disservice to students if the center were to be eliminated. Tseng said the center is a conduit for helping bring students to working communities and gives them information about working in labor unions in the future.

To compensate for the lack of funding, the university issued a one-time grant to the center, though it was only one-third of what the center requested, said Wong.

Wong and other staff members at the labor center have been battling the funding issue for the last two years. For the 2004 state budget, the elimination of the center was proposed, but the governor backed down because labor unions and members of the state legislature lobbied on behalf of the center.

Because of the previous victory over the proposed cut, Wong said he was disappointed that the cuts were made final this year.

Though the labor center is determined to continue to operate, the monetary strains are starting to take their toll. The center has already reduced its staff by one-third, although Wong anticipates being able to maintain the current staff through the end of the school year, thanks to minimal carry-over funding established through salary savings and fundraising, as well as the one-time grant from the university.

Though Schwarzenegger maintains the reductions were necessary to bring expenditures in line with resources, many at the center, including Wong, believe the budget cut was politically motivated.

“Labor unions support the labor center to provide educational resources to workers in the community,” Wong said. “The governor doesn’t support that.”

In a statement last spring, the spokesman for the Department of Finance, H.D. Palmer, said the cut reflected no ideological slant and was simply an effort to resolve the state’s budget problems.

The labor center operates under the Institute of Industrial Relations, which sponsors research on labor and employment issues. The Downtown Labor Center, a recently established branch of the center, brings students and staff closer to workers in downtown Los Angeles. Another program that works closely with the center is the UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program, which works to improve workers’ safety and health conditions.

Because UCLA-LOSH and the labor center collaborate on programs, including internships and research, UCLA-LOSH could be indirectly affected by the center’s lack of funding.

UCLA-LOSH program director Linda Delp said the labor center provides an important framework for students and workers to make a connection.

“The labor center is a critical link between students and workers. ... Without this link, students may get a skewed education,” Delp said. She said she believes that, without the center as a resource, students will not have enough exposure to the issues of workers.