Orange County Register

Union leaders including from Orange County have issued a press release saying they’ll be protesting at 8:30 a.m. at tomorrow’s UC Regents meeting in San Francisco regarding a labor dispute with top UC officials. Click to the next page if you want to read the entire release

CA’s Top Labor Leaders to Take Unprecedented Action at UC Regents Meeting, Demanding an End to Poverty Wages

Who:   California’s top labor leaders, representing more than half a million working families across the state of California.  Including:
Sharon Cornu, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Central Labor Council of Alameda County
Bill Camp, Executive Secretary, Sacramento Central Labor Council
Cesar Lara, Executive Director, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council
Tefere Gebre, Executive Director, Orange County Central Labor Council
Lorena Gonzalez, Secretary-Treasurer , San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council
Laurie Stalnaker, Executive Secretary Treasurer, San Bernardino – Riverside Central Labor Council
Tim Paulson, Executive Director, San Francisco Labor Council
Mike Casey, President, UNITE HERE Local 2 and San Francisco Labor Council

What: Top leaders directly confront University of California Board of Regents during their meeting to demand an immediate end to poverty wages at the University.

When: Thursday, November 20, 2008, 8:30am

Where: University of California San Francisco, Mission Bay Campus
Community Center
1675 Owens Street
San Francisco, CA  94518

Why:   For more than a year, over 8,500 University of California service workers have been pushing UC executives to end poverty wages. Currently, wages are so low for service workers  that 96% are income eligible for at least one form of public assistance like food stamps, WIC, public housing subsidies, and subsidized child care. Rising grocery bills, higher gas prices and the increasing risk of home foreclosure has caused a crisis for these thousands of UC service workers and their families that are already living paycheck to paycheck.
UC executives are expecting California taxpayers to cover the costs of not paying service workers enough to support their families, in the form of taxpayer-funded public assistance programs. Meanwhile, UC executives continue to pay themselves lavish salaries with taxpayer dollars. In a bad budget year, this is especially unacceptable.
UC worker’s wages are severely lower than other hospitals and California’s community colleges, which pay on 25% more. Top California labor leaders representing more than half a million working families, are calling upon the UC Regents and the UC executives to immediately end poverty wages and clearly address all of the serious issues that these dedicated UC workers and their families face through a fair contract.  For further information on the this issue, please visit www.facingpovertyatuc.org
Recently, UC executives agreed to a new five year contract for 11,500 UC Patient Care Workers that begins to close the wage gap with other hospital workers and improves benefits protections.  This contract should serve as the benchmark to lift thousands of service workers and their families out of poverty.
AFSCME Local 3299 represents 20,000 University of California employees at all ten campuses and five medical centers.  The job classifications of these workers include, but are not limited to: Licensed Vocational Nurse, Respiratory Therapist, Phlebotomists, Custodial Worker, Food Service Worker, and Security Officers.
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