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Rallies happening at UC campuses and medical centers
Hundreds of University of California workers including service and patient care workers and students are rallying across the UC system Wednesday, calling on the UC Board Regents to increase wages for their lowest paid employees as the cost of living continues to rise.
LOS ANGELES - Hundreds of University of California workers including service and patient care workers and students are rallying across the UC system Wednesday, calling on the UC Board Regents to increase wages for their lowest paid employees as the cost of living continues to rise.
Workers are calling on officials to raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour for all UC workers and are also demanding the UC invest in the development of more affordable housing for workers and students.
"The University of California knows there’s a housing crunch and they know workers are unable to afford to live anywhere near their work," said Kathryn Lybarger, president of AFSCME Local 3299, which represents 30,000 of UC's lowest-paid workers. "But instead of establishing a $25/hour minimum wage and making UC housing affordable for all UC workers, they find the money to give a UC chancellor a half-a-million dollar raise and housing assistance for all chancellors to buy a second home. Enough is enough."
According to AFSCME Local 3299, over the past five years, the share of UC service and patient care workers represented by AFSCME 3299 who are housing cost-burdened rise from 50% to 70%. The most recent census data reveals that over 50 percent of Californians living in occupied rental units are cost-burdened.
The University of California released the following statement in response to the rally:
"The University of California is grateful for the dedication and hard work of our employees across the system in support of our campuses, our students and faculty, and toward our larger missions of education, research, and public service. We are committed to providing competitive and fair compensation to all our employees. The pay increases guaranteed in our labor contracts with AFSCME recognize the critical support role our AFSCME-covered staff contribute to operations across our campuses, health enterprise, labs, and centers of expertise. In line with those principles, UC negotiated contracts that became effective in late January and early February 2020 that include compensation increases to AFSCME-covered employees averaging 5 percent for each year of the agreements.As negotiations begin in the months ahead, UC looks forward to working with AFSCME again. In the last year, we have settled contracts with over a half-dozen unions representing our lecturers, nurses, police officers, clerical, administrative staff, postdoctoral scholars, academic researchers, academic student employees, graduate student researchers, and most recently our health interns and residents (CIR-SEIU). These agreements were the result of both sides working collaboratively to find solutions and demonstrating flexibility and a genuine willingness to compromise at the bargaining table. We will approach our negotiations with AFSCME in the same fashion."