While eating fruit salad during his lunch break at OceanView Terrace, Carlos Cerecero voiced his concerns aloud.
“How can we make change if I have no power? If the people in the union cannot make changes, how can I? Give us ideas. Give us power.”
Cerecero is one of many UCSD service workers who ask the same question. Sixty years old, having worked as a cook at OVT for the past two years, Cerecero immigrated to the United States from Mexico 40 years ago and wonders about the efficacy of labor unions that UC service workers have grown to rely on for representation.
Earning $8 an hour, Cerecero chose to work for Housing and Dining Services instead of taking a job at a taco stand, which can pay $12 an hour, in order to receive medical benefits from the university.
“That’s why I am here,” Cerecero said. “It’s for the benefits, not the salary.”
As part of the lowest-paid group of university employees, food-service workers like Cerecero are joining other service work employees in an effort to receive higher wages.
A mess is something rarely seen among the lecture halls, restrooms and sidewalks of UCSD’s large, six-college campus. Instead of trash, the things students usually see strewn along Library Walk are leaves that fall from the surrounding army of eucalyptus trees, or student organization flyers pasted on the ground with blue tape. Bathrooms are routinely stocked with paper towels, and the wastebaskets at CLICS are silently emptied throughout the evening.
For students living on campus, bathrooms are cleaned at least once a week, while students living off campus wish they could have such luxury again.
The people responsible for the maintenance of the university are the service workers of Physical Plant and Housing and Dining Services, and such service does not come for free. But in light of last month’s union activity, the issue of higher pay has been put into question.
After months of bargaining with the university over what constitutes a living wage, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 and a team of service workers across the University of California pushed the issue with a one-day strike on April 14.
“[The strike] brought workers a little more together, more close,” said Richard Lawrence, an organizer for AFSCME 3299 and a UCSD central garage employee. “It unified them. It made us a lot stronger, and we found out we could accomplish things.”
Though it is absent in the recently proposed contract between the union and the university, the shining goal of AFSCME 3299 is to establish a “step system” that guarantees a gradual salary increase over the course of a worker’s duration of employment. Under current negotiations, this “chance to advance,” as the union calls it, has not been offered by the university.
Lawrence and Jessica Lopez, a UCSD alumna and organizer of AFSCME 3299, both central figures during the strike, have fought for the interests of UC service workers. The step-system is at the top of their plans to improve fairness to UCSD’s service workers who are working under a merit-based system that tends toward favoritism, according to Lopez.
“We wanted to implement a new step system that is not based on merit,” Lopez said. “Now we’re here to try something in its place.”
Last April’s strike was followed by a pending agreement between the union and the university that includes a minimum wage of $9 by this fall and one free meal per day for food-service workers, among other benefits. But what many workers truly hoped to see changed was the university’s system of employee promotion.
Miguel Macedo has worked for UCSD’s Physical Plant Services for 18 years and is hoping for higher pay after working for the paint shop — a branch of several PPS skilled worker jobs — for four years without a promotion. Irma Sanchez worked as a custodi an and also switched to the paint shop in hopes of attaining better wages. After two years, Sanchez was promoted to a higher position in the shop but has not received higher pay. Confused and wanting clear answers, both employees say they seek fairness in return for the years of service they have given to UCSD’s campus.
“We just want things to be fair,” Sanchez said. “We do the same job, but without the same pay.”
What most concerns UC service employees is the availability of open spots for higher positions that remain closed off from workers like Sanchez and Macedo — workers who are interested, but feel they are denied the opportunity. For example, the recent retirement of an employee in the paint shop has opened a position, but it has not been filled, according to Sanchez.
UC Office of the President labor-relations spokesman Noel Van Nyhuis believes such open positions should be reviewed carefully.
“If there is a position open, UC looks for the best possible candidate to fill the position,” Van Nyhuis said. “We support their moving up, but we also owe to our students the best possible candidate for the job.”
Service workers and unions like AFSCME 3299 are not alone in their endeavors to achieve higher wages. Students for Economic Justice, a student organization at UCSD, focuses on fair wages for underprivileged employees and has an agenda to educate students, faculty and the public about economic fairness. Past activities include the Justice for Janitors campaign in 2001 and, more recently, protests against cutting education in the state budget and supporting labor unions like AFSCME 3299.
SEJ member Lauren Walker is one of many students who values the importance of service employees at UCSD.
“We feel they are essential,” Walker said. “Without them, there wouldn’t be a campus.”
SEJ’s participation in the union strikes has shown student interest and support for the service workers’ situation. Student sentiment holds more power than most know, according to Walker.
“When the university sees that students care, it becomes a bigger issue,” Walker said. “If you get everyone behind one thing, then they can’t ignore us.”
Service workers know students do not disregard the long hours they put into their work, according to Lawrence.
“Without [SEJ], I don’t know if we could have made it this far,” Lawrence said. “The workers really appreciate it to see the students behind us. They supported and listened to us.”
While custodial workers come to campus for the first shift from 4 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and for the graveyard shift from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., appreciation for what they do may not always be obvious. For 10-year PPS employee Reuben Camcho, it is respect and recognition for what workers do that is most important, and he asks students to consider the people who are rarely seen but whose presence is known when facilities are cleaned. Camcho insists that his fellow service workers are vital to the image of the university.
“We are the backbone of the university,” Camcho said. “We’re the ones that make the university look good, and we’re trying to make thing better.”
As his coffee grows cold and only a few more minutes of his break remain, Cerecero expresses regret for what he believes to be a lack of positive change that unions have on their employment.
“If the union doesn’t care, that’s why people like us don’t believe. It’s very simple,” he said.
Some employees like Cerecero find themselves losing faith in the unions that are here to support them. But according to Lawrence, “The union is only as strong as the members are.” The desire for better treatment is strong among service employees, but their belief in how to accomplish this varies.
“We need more people,” Camcho said. “That’s the problem right now. There’s more workload, and people are getting tired.”
Service workers in the union will vote on the proposed contract between the union and the university, and their decision to accept the university’s concessions —— or not –—– will be determined by May 10. Lawrence and other workers ask themselves if it is worth it to accept the new deal at all when it does not address key issues, like a clear step-system plan.
Throughout negotiations, the university has said that contract decisions are dependent on this year’s tight state budget.
“[The contract] provides all we can hope to offer based on the compact with the governor,” Van Nyhuis said.
What the union asks for simply may not be what the university can accomodate. For the time being, someone will always be available to make an omelet in the morning and a sandwich in the afternoon at the dining halls. The dishes will be washed and the floors will be swept clean. As people begin to pour into Geisel Library to study for finals, students walk across floors that were vacuumed the night before and go to classrooms that were cleared before lecture.
With keen support for the cause of the union, mail-services worker Thomas Winson believes in the power of addressing employee’s rights.
“If you’re doing the right thing, nothing can go against you. But I’m just tired of it,” Winson said.
