Labor News to Come

I suspect you'll be hearing a lot about the wage dispute described below at future Regents meetings, at least in the public comments segments, although perhaps not at tomorrow's off-cycle meeting at Santa Cruz. 

Why UC workers say they must sleep in their cars to do their jobs for the wages paid

Sacramento Bee, Cathie Anderson, 8-23-23

Veronika Honcharuk drives 133 miles one way to get to her job in San Francisco from her home in Placerville. She logs patients’ admission information in the emergency department at UCSF’s Helen Diller Medical Center. She works 12 hours a shift, three days a week. To clear enough money to cover her parking ($300), gas ($600) and her car payment ($400) each month, she must put in a week and a half at her job. Honcharuk’s employer frequently offers her the opportunity to work overtime, she said, and she usually takes it because she needs the money. But if she works those extra hours, she will likely sleep in her car until the next shift rather than making the journey home and back. The drive time would eat up five to six hours.

Step into the world of low-wage workers at the University of California where overtime is a necessity, affordable housing is a super-commute away and cars double as bedrooms. Now, thousands of UC workers are demanding a wage increase that would allow them to alter this reality.  

“I’d love to get a new car. It would definitely help to pay my mortgage and to put more money into savings,” Honcharuk said. “There’s not a lot left over once you’ve paid a mortgage and car bill and the phone bill and all these bills. They all add up. You don’t have a lot to put aside for security.”  

The UC Board of Regents could better the lives of nearly a quarter of UC employees with pay increases that would equal to 2.5% of its current operating budget — or even less, according to researchers for Honcharuk’s union, AFSCME Local 3299. They make their case for two separate wage proposals in a report being released Wednesday titled “Priced Out: The University of California’s Role in the Affordability Crisis.”  

The University of California, responding to a query from The Bee, said it had not yet seen the AFSCME researchers’ report but that its leaders are open to discussing the wage proposals. Outside a recent regents meeting, AFSCME workers shouted their demands for a $25 minimum wage and across-the-board wage increases of 5% for AFSCME members currently earning more than that. The union and the UC will open talks on a new contract in January.  

“UC is aware of and has been reviewing the union’s public campaign around $25/5%,” system leaders said in a statement issued by the UC Office of the President. “If that is the economic proposal that AFSCME brings to the bargaining table in January of 2024, the university will seriously consider it, working with AFSCME through the bargaining process to identify economic terms that are fair, competitive, and reflect the varying economic markets across our state.” ...

Full article at https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article278079312.html.