UCSB Workers Target Chancellor’s Home

Service workers at UCSB went caroling outside Chancellor Henry Yang’s home on the college campus in hopes of pressuring him to press for better wages during contract negotiations taking place on campus. Yang was not at home at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec.19, when some three dozen food-service workers, groundskeepers and other University of California employees belonging to the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) sang modified lyrics to traditional Christmas tunes such as Jingle Bells. (“To the bank,” they chorused, “to the bank, jingle all the way / Regents will not share the wealth and workers have to pay.”) Surrounded by watching police officers, the carolers also left a Christmas stocking filled with charcoal on the walkway of Yang’s on-campus house. The Yangs were still not home shortly after 10 p.m. when about 20 UCSB custodians got off work and gathered outside the on-campus domicile to sing a traditional song of unity and activism, “De Colores,” in Spanish, without changing the lyrics.

The AFSCME represents just over 500 workers at UCSB, and 20,000 in the entire UC system. Continuing negotiations for a new contract took place in a UCen conference room on December 19 and 20. (The old contract is set to expire at the end of January.) At the end of the two days, an agreement was still a long way off, according to both union and UC officials, and the two sides are scheduled to meet next at UC Berkeley on January 3. Bob Pinto, a member of the bargaining team who works as a grounds laborer at UCSB, said the process was frustrating. On the first day, the negotiators listened to testimony from workers, but on the second day, they caucused in a separate room, not appearing at the table until shortly before lunch. The 20 or so members of the bargaining team “fly from all over the state at union expense to come to these things,” he said, “and then they don’t meet with us. It’s discouraging. They say they are working on stuff but who knows what they are doing.”

Julian Posadas, the union’s member organizer at the UCSB campus, contends that UCSB service workers’ wages do not reflect the cost of living in the area, and are 10-30 percent below pay for comparable jobs at government and other large institutions in the surrounding area. Pinto added that the pay ranges that accompany advertising for the jobs are misleading: the pay remains at the low end of that range because practically nobody gets raises. The union is asking the administration for a $15 per hour minimum wage for all of its workers, along with step increases according to how long people have been employed. It is also asking for a freeze in health insurance deductions.