By Timothy Kudo
Daily Bruin Staff
After protests from the steps of Murphy Hall to the medical
plaza, the university and the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees have reached a tentative agreement over the
workers at UCLA’s laundry facility and medical records
department.
By the agreement the university will find new jobs for workers
at both facilities and will hire casual workers who have worked for
at least a year.
“They closed the building, there’s nothing there any
more,” said Sandra McVickar, a laundry facility employee.
“Everybody who’s been working for the laundry
they’re putting in a position at UCLA.”
“Some people are cleaning, some are in the
cafeteria,” she continued. “They are training, some
started today, some tomorrow and some Monday.”
The laundry facility is being subcontracted to the Sodexho
Marriot company, one of the largest companies of its sort in the
nation.
But, Jose Hernandez, an AFSCME organizer, the union that
represents the workers at both facilities, said the company has a
poor labor record. Sodexho Marriot couldn’t be reached for
comment.
Though Hernandez said he wished the subcontracting could have
been avoided, he added that the agreement was positive since
employees will be moved to other areas of the university, and also,
they will receive retraining if necessary.
Such a practice is in accordance with how the university has
acted in such situations the past, said Mark Speare, senior
associate director of patient relations and human resources.
At the medical records department, employees will remain for
another year. Afterwards, their retraining will be paid through
forgivable loans. These are loans in which there is no repayment if
the employee continues to work for the university.
According to Speare, 55 of 89 workers have already been
relocated to other positions within the university.
“It’s a win-win for everybody,” he said.
“I think we’re under difficult circumstances but
we’re pleased that we’re able to place so much
staff.”
To pay for the costs of retraining, Speare said that the
university was going to look to the state legislature for help.
Since the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 was signed into law by
President Clinton, Medicare reimbursements for all medical centers
have declined.
But, those problems have been even more severe for the UCLA
Medical Center, which projections show is going to be in the red in
part due to a large constituency on Medicare in the area.
“The actions we’ve had to take in the past year
related to our financial performance maintains us as a viable
provider of health services and as a teaching service for the
university,” Speare said. “If we didn’t take
these actions, we wouldn’t be available anymore.”
“We’re a not-for-profit institution serving the
needs of our community,” he continued. “We can’t
accomplish that mission if the institution can’t find a way
to support itself financially.”
In addition, casual workers at the laundry facility, employees
who traditionally do not receive benefits, who worked for more than
a year will become full-time employees. Those who worked for less
time will come under the University of California umbrella as
casual employees.
The causal workers previously worked for a temporary agency at
the laundry facility.
Some remained as casuals for as long as seven years without
benefits or job security.
The university uses those employees to meet short-term job
positions and while that is not something the university advocates,
Brad Hayward, a UC spokesman, said some casual workers may end up
as casuals for an extended period of time.
Currently, after 13 months of continuous service at the
university, a casual employee is hired full-time.
“There are sometimes breaks in service that have resulted
in casual appointments being extended to longer terms,”
Hayward said. “We know that is an issue that has been a
concern.”
Subcontracting and casual workers were such big issues that
legislation was recently introduced to deal with the two ““
specifically at the University of California.
“We don’t believe the answer is in
legislation,” Hayward said. “We think these are issues
we can address through the university process.”
According to Hayward, the university needs the flexibility that
casual workers offer not only to fill short-term jobs.
Recently, AFSCME, the Coalition of University Employees and the
University Professional and Technical Employees have joined
together to fight the UC’s policy on casual workers.
“Our three unions are the ones that represent employees
that are most affected by the sort of perma-temp policy of the
university,” said Howard Ryan, an UPTE spokesman.
Though Hernandez called the agreement a victory, he said
alongside the casual workers policy of the university, there are
numerous issues that the the two groups will come to terms with in
the future.
“We still have a thousand more problems to resolve with
them,” Hernandez said. “There is no labor peace with
the university and there probably won’t be for the next five
years.”
The tentative agreement is expected to be ratified as soon as
Saturday.