By Francisco Garcia
Last Friday, May 10, was a benchmark for student labor
organizing on campus. Over 200 students, union members, ASUCLA
workers, faculty and community supporters came together in support
of a living wage and benefits, as well as overall dignity and
respect on the job for about 130 ASUCLA non-student employees.
Students united alongside workers as concerned members of the UCLA
community who realized that these workers were facing grave
injustices due to a business decision made about seven years ago by
our own ASUCLA.
Amid all of these injustices, it is irresponsible for the Daily
Bruin to report on the potential financial impacts of bringing
about decent living wages for these campus workers. An article in
the Daily Bruin last Friday (“Union could cost ASUCLA
dearly,” News, May 10) used financial numbers, perhaps
blindly from ASUCLA management, to state that the cost of
unionization would lead to cutbacks in student services.
All this mention of the estimated fiscal impact without
substantial focus on the pressing conditions in which workers find
themselves takes away from the real issue of injustice. Moreover,
the Daily Bruin has yet to look at how funds are already unequally
distributed in a hierarchical manner; for example, in 1999, several
ASUCLA executive and senior management staff made over $100,000
each, including two who made nearly $150,000 or higher. The top
five executives make over $600,000 combined.
The fact that our student association is currently functioning
off of a low-wage, non-union workforce alongside other unionized
university workers should be enough for most students to feel
uneasy about their student association. And it is. Most students,
once made aware of the gross labor inequalities confronting ASUCLA
workers, respond with great concern and a desire to change the
situation. Moreover, many students who come from immigrant and
working-class backgrounds think of their parents or grandparents,
who just as easily could be these very ASUCLA workers.
The response of many students on campus has been enormous. In
the last three weeks, over 2,000 signatures have been collected in
support of a living wage and other demands for these workers. In
the last six weeks, a core group of students has been aggressively
organizing to create broader campus awareness of the issue,
building support amongst students, faculty and staff, and creating
a network alongside ASUCLA workers.
But student labor and campus labor activism at UCLA did not
begin a month or even a year ago. Students have been actively
involved in organizing with various types of campus workers for the
past two and a half years. It is not “blind” support,
but is based on actual discussions with campus workers and a
principled decision that we will not stand for our university to
function off of the backs of low-wage work and unfair labor
conditions. To say that students and workers are
“blindly” supporting the union is an insult to both
groups, and seriously misconstrues the organizing process.
Students are consciously acting on their education to create
social change, making their institutions accountable for addressing
issues of equity, and are recognizing their responsibility to
support campus workers organizing for economic justice. Workers
themselves have decided that they want unionization and have chosen
AFSCME as that union.
Moreover, campus labor organizing can be taken even further back
to SAGE/UAW ““ a campus labor union consisting of primarily
graduate and undergraduate students employed as teaching
assistants, readers and tutors ““ that has been organizing for
unionization and respect as workers for over 15 years in the UC
system. After a long-term struggle that required a strike and
constant organizing, the union was officially recognized in
1999.
The ASUCLA workers in question are demanding rights everyone
should have. They are asking for basic rights like health care, the
ability to make a living wage, and some sense of job security. If
the current ASUCLA model cannot afford this, then clearly this
model does not work and needs some revisions. Worker poverty should
not be maintained as a solution to fiscal problems, which ASUCLA
has already recognized.
By signing the resolution in support of worker unionization and
economic justice last Friday, ASUCLA should now ensure that this
commitment is acted upon by the proper university officials.
All members of the UCLA community, especially students, should
make their affirmations of fundamental human and labor rights a
reality by standing on the side of social and economic justice
rather than injustice and economic exploitation. Students should
support the efforts of other students and workers in the current
living wage effort. The cost of not unionizing and continued
injustice is indeed much too high to ignore, and transcends any
myopic discussion of “being able to afford” living
wages.