Study Is Critical of UC’s Wages

With contract talks between the University of California and its service workers union stalled, a union-sponsored analysis released Tuesday asserted that the wages of many UC custodians, cooks and other workers were too low to cover such basic needs as housing, food and child care.

The report by the National Economic Development and Law Center, an Oakland-based advocacy and research group, also showed that UC wage rates for a specific category of worker -- senior custodians -- were substantially below those for their counterparts at California State University and California community college campuses.

The center’s report was commissioned by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents service workers at UC campuses and medical centers. Talks between the union and university officials reached an impasse last month, mostly over wages, both sides said. A state mediator is now seeking to avert a strike.

A UC spokesman Tuesday pointed to the recent breakdown in labor talks as part of the background for the report’s release, suggesting the union may be trying to pressure the university.

The spokesman, Nick Van Nyhuis also disputed the wage comparisons in the report, saying many of the figures were not accurate because they used wage ranges instead of specific salary amounts for various job categories at the university system.

“That’s not a fair comparison,” Van Nyhuis said.

Also, he said, the state’s continuing budget problems have hurt UC’s ability in recent years to increase wages for all its workers, from faculty members to groundskeepers.

The study, released at a UCLA news conference, covered UC’s nearly 7,000 service workers and relied on “self-sufficiency standards” that estimated the costs of an individual’s or a family’s basic needs, based on county of residence and family size. Some poverty experts consider that a more accurate indicator of a family’s actual costs than federal poverty standards.

Using those measures, the report found that 93% of UC service workers earned wages that would not meet basic needs for a single adult with a child. It estimated that 35% of those workers would not earn enough to support their own basic needs, even without dependents, for rent, food, healthcare, transportation and taxes.

The report also found that average hourly wage rates for UC senior custodians ranged from $10.06 to $13.02, lagging those for their counterparts at Cal State campuses by 15% and for California community college custodians by about 26%. The study said the average annual pay at UCLA was $23,107 for a senior custodian and $15,609 for a food service worker.

“UC has a reputation for excellence and opportunity, but that’s clearly not the case when it comes to its service workers,” said Aimee Durfee, senior program specialist at the advocacy group and the report’s co-author.

Luz Roman, who has worked for seven years as an assistant cook at UCLA, said her $1,200 monthly income is not enough to support herself and three children. A single mother, Roman fought back tears at the news conference as she told of collecting cans and working overtime to supplement her UCLA income.

“UCLA is pretty from the outside but not from the inside,” she said. “I know they can do better than this.”