1-Day Strike Hits UC Facilities

Cooks, janitors, groundskeepers and other service workers staged a one-day strike Thursday at University of California campuses and hospitals, protesting their job conditions and stalled union contract negotiations. The walkout caused minor disruptions throughout the university system.

Union activists with Local 3299 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents 7,300 UC service workers, called rallies and protests at 12 university sites throughout the state.

Campus officials said that many union workers crossed picket lines, and that managers filled in for striking employees. Professors sympathetic to the walkout canceled no more than a few classes, officials said.

But UC administrators, who said strikers would be docked a day’s pay, acknowledged that the walkout reduced food service, deliveries, and cleaning and maintenance.

UC officials said the strike was “presumptively illegal” because negotiations with the union have not reached a dead end. Union officials disagreed, saying that employees have worked without a contract since Jan. 31 and have not received a raise in two years.

Pay levels vary at campuses across the state, but the union cites figures showing that 40% of its members at UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Riverside and UC San Diego earn less than $10 an hour.

In addition, the National Economic Development and Law Center, an Oakland-based advocacy and research group, released a report in February finding that annual pay at UCLA was $23,107 for a senior custodian and $15,609 for a food service worker.

“The university is a low-wage employer, and thousands of workers don’t work during breaks when campus is closed, and they are not eligible for unemployment,” said Paul Worthman, chief negotiator for Local 3299. UC officials, saying that workers deserve a raise but that the university system is being pinched by the tight state budget, have offered raises totaling 8% over three years.

UC says the union has asked for increases totaling 20% over three years -- a claim the union denies. Worthman declined to give a figure on how much of a pay hike workers want, saying it depended on which other benefits UC would provide.

Among the day’s spirited demonstrations was a 3 p.m. protest at UCLA that attracted hundreds of people.

Striking workers, with their children and other family members, marched in a circle, chanting “We want justice!” “When do we want it? Now!” in Spanish and English.

Teretha Day, a custodian at UCLA, said participating in the rally made her feel more confident about the possibility of getting a raise. “Hopefully, somebody can hear us. It’s been a long time,” Day said.

Freshman Julia Weisner said she had stocked up on fruit and yogurt to avoid using the campus food service. “These people serve us all year, so the least we could do for one day is support them,” she said.

But Bago Amirbekian, a sophomore biophysics major, said he supported the strike but thought his paid meal plan shouldn’t go to waste. So he bought a turkey sandwich at the Bruin Cafe. “There was a lot fewer people, so we got our food a lot faster,” Amirbekian said.

At UC Berkeley, workers and their supporters rallied late in the day outside a faculty reception honoring Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, whose inauguration ceremony is set for today. Birgeneau, who wore a lapel button expressing support for the workers, met with strikers earlier in the day. He said he had spoken to UC President Robert Dynes and urged him to consider raising the workers’ pay.

Some instructors used the strike as an opportunity to discuss the plight of low-wage workers.

At UC Irvine, lecturer Grant Hier brought his writing class, which is reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s book about the working poor, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” outside to see the protesters.

His 20 students crowded around Juan Castillo, a union organizer who described workers’ concerns about having to work more than one job to afford the cost of living in Orange County.

“When I asked my students who they supported -- the university or the workers -- a lot of them didn’t know where they stood. So I saw this as a learning opportunity to do field research,” Hier said.

At UC Riverside, about 150 service employees, mostly dining hall workers, failed to report for work Thursday morning, campus spokeswoman Marcia McQuern said. Picketers at the entrances to the campus drew cheers, honks and whistles from passersby.

Times staff writers Rachana Rathi, Susannah Rosenblatt and Rebecca Trounson contributed to this report.