By Benjamin Parke Daily Bruin Contributor About 100
demonstrators marched to Murphy Hall on Friday evening Â
making it known that they think UCLA is washing its hands of
responsibility for the people who work in the hospital’s laundry
facility.
One of the people in the procession, which wound its way from
Westwood Plaza to the building housing Chancellor Albert
Carnesale’s office, was 56-year-old Maria Martinez. She works at
UCLA’s laundry facility in Culver City, making $6.40 an hour with
no benefits.
In addition to four grandchildren, Martinez has a daughter who
is struggling financially to attend Mount St. Mary’s College.
"It’s very expensive and I have to tell her I can’t do anything
to help," said Martinez, who added that she was worried what would
happen if UCLA goes through with its plans to close the laundry
facility and subcontract the service to a private company.
"Now I’m an old lady and it’s hard finding a job," Martinez
said.
As they approached Murphy Hall, members of the procession
cheered as a UCLA shuttle bus honked several times in recognition
of the marchers.
They found the doors of the administration building locked,
however, when after 6 p.m., they attempted to send in a delegation
carrying petitions for the chancellor.
Keith Parker, assistant vice chancellor for government and
community relations, was standing next to the demonstrators
outside, and accepted their petitions on behalf of Carnesale.
Martinez is one of about 20 people working in the facility who
are employed by a private agency contracted by the university. The
rest  about 40 workers  are permanent employees of
UCLA, and receive benefits and higher wages.
All of the workers stand to lose their jobs if the facility
closes. The university has indicated that it wants to find jobs for
the laundry workers in other areas of the university, with no loss
in pay or benefits.
Mark Speare, senior associate director at the hospital’s Patient
Relations and Human Resources office, said the school is in
continuing discussions with the union representing the workers
 the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal
Employees.
"We had a series of extensive meetings with AFSCME to try to
find ways to minimize the effects of subcontracting," Speare said
Friday afternoon. "We have every intention to find employment for
them."
But those who lit candles in a vigil outside of Murphy Hall saw
the university’s plan to subcontract laundry services as an attempt
to turn more and more good unionized jobs into what they called
"junk jobs."
"We’re supposed to be one big family, aren’t we?" asked the Rev.
Frank Wulf as he addressed the demonstrators. Wulf is the Methodist
chaplain at UCLA, and sits on the Chancellor’s Committee on
Religion, Ethics and Values.
"How can you teach values when you don’t respect them yourself?
How can you teach people to be good citizens when you are not being
a good corporate citizen yourself?" Wulf added.
He said he couldn’t speak for everyone on the chancellor’s
committee, which is looking into the matter but hasn’t yet taken a
stance.
Joining laundry employees in the vigil were students, many
representing an array of campus groups, as well as faculty members
from departments such as anthropology, education, history and
women’s studies. One faculty member, Professor of Clinical Medicine
Jerome Hoffman, works at the very place that utilizes the laundry
facility’s services  the Emergency Medical Center.
"There are many people in the School of Medicine who believe
that this type of attempt to turn many of the departments at UCLA
into basically sweatshop conditions  in the interest of money
 is antithetical to the fundamental principles of the
university and the medical center," Hoffman said.
Campus groups represented by students at the vigil included
Consciencia Libre, the Environmental Coalition, La Familia, and
Youth Socialist Action.
Derek Seidman, a member of Youth Socialist Action, said that
several organizations have formed an alliance called the
Student-Labor Coalition, and that students could accomplish more by
working together.
"There needs to be a body where different organizations come
together and join up with labor, rather than doing things in a
fragmentary way," said Seidman, a second-year history student.
Hoffman, the professor of clinical medicine, said that the
hospital’s goal is not only to provide health care, but care to the
people of California, whether rich or poor.
"To be an institution of high ethics is in direct conflict with
the belief that all that matters is the bottom line," Hoffman
said.
"That’s whether it is in the form of honoring a public figure
who did everything he could to hurt this university and to limit
access to health care for the most vulnerable members of our
society  or to deny basic rights to graduate student workers,
or to break the unions that have long since served not only the
workers on this campus, but all of us," he continued.
The protesters taped more than 60 human-shaped paper cut-outs
 one for each laundry worker  to the entrance of Murphy
Hall. Many were signed by the workers themselves, and contained
messages that said how their families would be affected by the loss
of their jobs.
The laundry workers are generally middle-aged, and many are
immigrants from countries such as Mexico and El Salvador. Celia
Canela, who has worked in the facility for 26 years, said pride was
one reason her co-workers wanted to keep their jobs.
"They don’t want to live off welfare," Canela said.