At least 19 union demonstrators, including two UCSD custodians, were arrested in San Francisco last week after occupying the office of UC Board of Regents Chairman Richard Blum in protest of stalled wage negotiations for university service workers.
Kathryn Lybarger, a gardener at UC Berkeley who organized the demonstration, said that roughly 60 people gathered outside Blum’s investment firm, and that she was one of 19 who protested peacefully inside his personal office for about an hour before being arrested.
Police at the scene reported 22 arrests on charges of trespassing.
Lybarger said she and other workers chose to focus on Blum because he and UC President Mark G. Yudof are ultimately responsible for settling the contract and bringing the university’s service workers out of poverty.
‘We didn’t want to get arrested, but there’s too much here at stake,’ she said. ‘The university is making us fight really hard for what are actually very modest demands.’
She added that since November, the university has ignored the union’s requests to continue negotiations.
In a statement, Yudof called the demonstration ‘inappropriate, disrespectful and a violation of Regent Blum’s privacy,’ adding that the action was ‘potentially damaging’ to contract negotiations.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has been in talks with the university since October 2007 in hopes of securing raises for 8,500 UC custodians, cafeteria employees and groundskeepers.
AFSCME Local 3299 President Lakesha Harrison said that at least 96 percent of these employees are eligible for public assistance.
‘The poorest workers on campus are still suffering, and it’s getting worse,’ she said. According to UC spokesman Paul Schwartz, reductions in state funding have restricted the university’s ability to offer wage increases.
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