| Coalition of University Employees (CUE) | 2855 Telegraph Ave., Suite #302, Berkeley, CA 94705 Contact CUE (510) 845-2221 (phone), (510) 845-7444 (FAX) |
October 5, 2005
Senators, Ladies and Gentleman:
I am Stephanie Dorton and I am an administrative assistant at Boalt Hall School of Law on the Berkeley campus. I am here with my Local 2 President, Judy Shattuck, and my chief negotiator, Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie, along with 20 of my colleagues and my son.
It is indeed an honor to come before you again, this time as the statewide representative for the Coalition of University Employees. I speak to you today not only as a ten-year employee of the University, but as a single mother of two, appealing to your sense of human decency. I have come here to tell you that we have reached a state of emergency.
The University has ignored the pleas of its employees for much too long. Many of us are living at or below the poverty line because the University has refused to increase our wages over the last four years. The cost of living in California is skyrocketing, just as the salaries of the UC executives, while the people who keep this institution running on a daily basis are left to suffer, to live from paycheck to paycheck, and at this moment in the bargaining process are being asked to give up our individual constitutional right to honor the picket lines of our brother and sisters in other unions in order to gain fair and just contracts.
The University is trying everything it can to bust the unions. In the instance of CUE the University rushing to PERB to declare impasse demonstrates this. This is yet another example of UC negotiation tactics which prolong the collective bargaining process and as a result union represented employees, for example CUE, UPTE, AFT Librarians and others, are not receiving the legislative compact monies, while unrepresented employees have as of October 1, 2005. In contrast, CSU employees received the governor's compact allocation as of July 1, 2005, at the beginning of the new fiscal year.
In our contract negotiations CUE proposes that we receive the compact money as of July 1, 2005, and UC proposes to implement the 3% as of October 1. The three months delay in implementing the 3% increase causes UC to save 3.5 million dollars from the state allocated compact money for 2005-2006.
Additionally the deception that UC perpetrates is that they are giving us an additional 1/2 percent for market equity increases. When in fact they are ONLY actually giving us the savings they earned for the 3 months we did not receive the increase that you, the legislators have allocated for us.
So, as a single parent with two children at home, I cannot afford to live in this state on a UC salary. My kids don't understand when they ask for something and I have to make them wait or tell them no because we just don't have the money. It is sad when they say mommy we need some fruit but I can't go to the store because I have to make my salary stretch to the end of the month. My daughter doesn't understand why she had to go to a junior college this year rather than straight to a 4-year institution. It is a shame that my household has to go without the additional monies that was promised us by the governors' compact.
Even with the slight increase I am making less money because of the cost of gas, the increase of health care and parking costs. For example, a 3% increase in my salary is the equivalent of $93.57 cents per month. I subtract the 7 - 9% increase in health care the university anticipates handing down to the employee, which is about $25.00 per month; minus the $7.00 increase in parking, minus taxes, will only leave the possibility of having an additional $30.00 per month.
It is appalling that President Dynes feels that he should go to the private sector for donations to supplement the salaries of executives making over $350,000/yr, as reported in the SF Chronicle. If they can't survive with that type of money, I charge each and every one of them to live for one month on the net pay of a clerical, a custodian or a housing and dining worker. Dynes' salary of $350,000 dollars a year can pay the salary of 9 clerical workers; Mullinix makes $395,000/year, that salary can pay 10 clericals. I ask, what is wrong with this picture?
While you ponder the answer, let me answer it for you. Many of us have dedicated our lives to being outstanding employees and giving many years of dedicated service for what, to an institution that has no respect for its employees. It is a University that would rather see us go into poverty than bargain in good faith, give us decent salary increases, and even have the audacity to ask us to give up our constitutional right to honor a picket line or face discipline, including termination.
In CUE we feel that the impact of the University's bullying has now succeeded in putting our jurisdiction in a place where people are starving. We are starving not only for pay increases; we are starving for many of the basic necessities of life.
All this is the University's attempt to weaken the unions and terrify workers into submission. When Cue's 2003-2004 re-opener bargaining went to impasse, CUE demonstrated without a doubt that UC wages were lower than market and lower than comparable salaries at California State campuses, and it was demonstrated that UC could easily afford the modest increases we were asking for in 2003-2004, which the neutral fact-finder, Gerald McKay, agreed that the library assistant salaries are 33% behind market and clericals are 20% behind. Yet UC refused to honor the fact-finding report and grant us across the board salary increases. Instead UC imposed 0% to over 16,500 employees and minimal increases to approximately 12 nutrition workers in San Diego and equity increases to approximately 6-8 public safety dispatchers in Irvine.
Now here we are less than year later from the anniversary of that fact-finding report in the same position we were in then. We were forced to impasse, must endure mediation, and again, go through fact-finding. Why? UC has the money and still refuses to issue a reasonable cost of living increase to help its employees live comfortably in the State of California, and continues its policy of union busting and bad faith bargaining. When will this injustice end? It is my hope, and the hope of all of us here, that you AS legislators WILL continue to put pressure on UC to do the right thing and to discontinue its practice of union busting, force the University to bargain in good faith, cease and desist the policies of this Wal-Mart of higher education.
UC should be required to at least compensate workers represented by CUE at a comparable level to our counterparts in the CSU system. UC has the money to do that today.
I thank you for this time and would like to have my chief negotiator, Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie, step forward to help answer any questions that you may have.
EXAMPLE:
$30,000 annual salary
July 1 implementation:
3.5% across the board increase = $1,050
October 1 implementation:
3.5% across the board increase = $787.50
Difference from delayed implementation = $262.50
$262.50 X 16,500 employees = $4,331,250 salary savings