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Shanna Choi of the Center for Internal Medicine joined labor demonstrators in calling for higher

From San Diego to Sacramento, hundreds of University of California workers took to the streets Wednesday to voice their dissatisfaction with the UC’s labor contract negotiations.

Six unions representing a range of workers from food service to researchers participated in noontime rallies at seven UC campuses: San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Riverside, Berkeley, Davis and Los Angeles.

Despite the threat of rain, about 100 picketers, beating drums, blowing whistles and chanting labor mantras, turned out for the rally at UCLA,

“What do we want? Contracts! When do we want them? Now!” was the repeated exchange between the crowd and rally leader Clift Fried, vice president of the local chapter of University Professional and Technical Employees.

After a series of short inspirational speeches, the protesters marched from outside Murphy Hall to Chancellor Albert Carnesale’s office upstairs. Assistant Chancellor Antoinette Mongelli received the crowd and spoke on his behalf, explaining the chancellor had a previous appointment.

The chancellor is in support of the employees and the collective bargaining process, Mongelli said, adding that she thought the rally was a positive way to express workers’ concern about wages and job security.

Rally organizers wanted to draw attention to the length of time they have spent negotiating; for the lecturers’ union it has been more than two years.

Union leaders attribute the time factor to the UC’s bargaining in “bad faith,” with no intention to resolve disputes, a position the university regularly contests.

Coalition of University Employees protesters held signs with messages like “UC – they pay us like they hate us” and “Nothing works without the clerks,” showing anger at the alleged lack of respect the university has shown them at the bargaining table.

“How much can we get out of them this time?” asked Bert Thomas, local president of CUE, imitating what he calls the “Wal-Mart thinking” of negotiating officials that has both infuriated and scared him.

Union members also voiced dissatisfaction with the UC’s current efforts to deal with the state budget crisis. They expressed anger about a Los Angeles Times article that reported the cash-strapped UCLA hospitals spent $1.9 million to hire consultants who could recommend up to 450 full-time job cuts.

“It’s Enron in reverse: Enron uses fancy bookkeeping to demonstrate faulty wealth, the UC uses fancy bookkeeping to demonstrate faulty poverty,” said Thomas.

But UC press aide Paul Schwartz said the university is offering the best wage packages it can, given the current state budget crisis.

Local Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, wrote a letter to UC President Richard Atkinson expressing concern regarding workers’ below-market salaries.

Koretz, a UCLA alumnus, is chairman of the state Assembly’s Labor and Employment Committee and had a field representative present at the rally.

Though food service workers ratified their contract last summer, many members of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees showed up to express solidarity with other workers still negotiating for a contract.

Speaking through a translator, Lorena Arrieta, a food service worker, said union workers want the administration to cut jobs above with management and not below with workers.

“It reduces our checks, which will hurt our families, and prevents our attempt to try and live a better life,” Arrieta said.