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.