Berkeley Rent/Parking Strike? - Part 2

We previously reported on a grad student rent and parking fee "strike" at Berkeley that appears to have union support. From KRON:

One of University of California, Berkeley’s student housing complexes has been enduring a game of ping-pong between its landlords and tenants regarding recent rent hikes and the alleged violation of some residents’ union contracts. After allegedly “abruptly leaving” the Zoom conference call for negotiations, University Village’s Associate Vice Chancellor canceled the meeting. Now, residents are urging UC to negotiate with them — again — in good faith.

University Village, in Albany, houses over 900 undergraduate, graduate and post-doc students. Many are low-income residents facing debt from college loans or medical bills. Since they are older students, many also have children to care for. On July 1, UCB imposed a $64 monthly parking fee, accumulating over $750 yearly. Rent prices have also increased 4% since July 4 — the third consecutive year UC has increased its yearly prices by 4%. 

A memo to residents read in part: “All Resident, Employee, and Guest vehicles parking on the grounds of University Village are required to have a valid Parking Permit or payment of the Visitor Parking Fee.”

“Before implementing virtual permits, we had many incidents of parking by non-residents from the surrounding area. This fee will help cover the cost to better enforce these violations, and we have seen positive results over the past academic year,” Elisa Smith with Cal’s Department of Student Affairs told KRON4.

Since imposing the fees, UC Berkeley has allegedly issued “hundreds of parking citations” to University Village residents “in an effort to quash the residents’ organized effort to stop new parking fees and rent hikes at the Village,” Kris Libunao, a UC Berkeley grad student and UC Village resident told KRON4.

Libunao said that since the new fees and citations were imposed, more than 300 residents have allegedly refused to pay them. After rescheduling the meeting twice, on Tuesday evening, over 130 residents gathered to address the recent price hikes with UC Berkeley’s Associate Vice Chancellor Jo Mackness to reach a “fair agreement on parking fees and rent price hikes,” Libunao said, alleging the rent hikes are also a violation of union contracts. Upon entering the Zoom meeting, Mackness “abruptly left,” Libunao said.

“We prepared for weeks to reach an agreement with UC Berkeley, and they just walked out without even saying a word to us,” said Ninel Melkonyan, a UAW 4811 member, parent, and resident at the Village. “It was incredibly disrespectful and disappointing.” ...

According to Libunao and UAW 4811 members, residents are proposing that UC offer “a base rent reduction to offset the new monthly fee, waive all citations issued in the last 12 months, and engage in negotiations in good faith.”  Smith claims “these meetings were not negotiations,” as the new parking fee had already been implemented. As for the rent hikes, Smith claims UC “communicated well in advance to resident families and financial aid resources are available to student residents.”

Full story at https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/uc-berkeley-official-allegedly-leaves-cancels-negotiations-concerning-student-housing-rent-hikes/.