AFSCME on Strike During New Student Orientations at UCSC

Incoming UC Santa Cruz students and their families got an official orientation to college on July 17th while campus service workers were striking for the fourth day in a row. Since 2004, the Student and Worker Coalition for Justice (SWCJ) at UC Santa Cruz has been working to spread awareness and solidarity with the hardest-working and lowest-paid employees at the University of California (UC). In the last year alone, the demand to end poverty wages at the UC has been carried far and wide, including meetings of the UC Regents, dorms, dinning halls and classrooms, an alumni fundraiser luncheon, a $1,000 a plate dinner with Chancellor George Bluementhal, the Chancellor's inauguration, Highway 1, as well as to representatives in Sacramento. Service workers are vital to the UC, however AFSCME, the union representing the workers, reports that they are nowhere near reaching a fair settlement with the UC.