UC Davis = last UC to have contracted out workers

They've met with their managers. They've met with administration. And they're still making less money per hour than their university employee counterparts. So Thursday they came out in the hundreds to garner community support.

But Rahim Reed, UCD's associate executive vice chancellor, said he was not sure what they were fighting for as he walked past the crowd that marched toward the administration building and then to the Silo Union where some of them work. The protest ended with some allowed to step into a brown bag luncheon with the university's chancellor.

The rally's purpose is to demand university jobs with the same benefits, wages and respect that all UC employees receive, according to a press release. It is being organized by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299. The union represents 18,000 service and patient care workers through out the UC system.

"This fits into the discussion for health care for all," said Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada, who announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 8th Assembly District on Wednesday. She said she supported a universal health care system and encouraged the university to support it as well, as it would benefit the workers.

UCD contracts more than 550 food service and custodial jobs to private companies including French food service provider Sodexho, said the union.

"We need a good place to work where we can get more hours and if we need a day off, we can get one," said Josephina Palmerin, who has who has been working for Sodexho for a year and a half in the Segundo Platform Dining Commons.

Palmerin said she just received a 20-cent-per-hour raise, and a year ago a sixth day to work. But when she agreed to work a six-day work week, she said she wasn't told that the other days would take a hit in hours. Palmerin simply thought that she'd be offered more than 40 hours to work.

Like many of the workers, Palmerin lives in Woodland rather than in Davis because it's less expensive.

The rally began at the UC Davis quad, headed to the steps of the administration building and ended at the Silo Union where some of them work.

"People know that I work at the university but what they don't understand is that I don't work for the UC. But I deserve to," said Woodland resident Lidia Uribe, a cook with seven years of service.

Organizer Max Bell Alper said that wages for a cook for Sodexho is $10.75 per hour while university cooks make between $12.11 and $15.49 per hour.

Meanwhile, the price of health care for Sodexho workers is $81.54 per week for Kaiser while the same plan for UC employees is $4.35 per week, Alper said.

In recent years, contracted out food service workers at UCLA, UC Santa Cruz and UC Irvine have successfully campaigned to become university employees.

A cook at UCSC, Ernie Encinas, came to support the workers at UCD because he knows what it was like to work as a contracted employee. He said he was making about $9 per hour and there was nothing he could do about it. Management's response, Encinas said, was: "If you don't like it, there's the door."

But students started backing their cause at UCSC and the other UCs, which was a message brought to students at UCD.

On Feb. 22, a senator for UCD's associated student body, Andrew Peake, introduced a resolution to the senate floor in support of the contracted workers. The resolution was approved with 10-1-1 vote with two abstentions due to their absence.

"If the demand is there, (an agreement with the administration) will be made," he said.

Thursday's rally was the first public demonstration by the workers who intend to show the university the support they have and to make their demands clear to UC administration that they deserve university jobs.

"We're going to go as far as we need to go," said student worker Patricia Zermen, suggesting that a strike will occur if their issues aren't addressed by administrators.

- Reach Monica Krauth at 406-6231 or mkrauth [at] dailydemocrat.com.

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