Cal Student Workers Get International Press Coverage

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 4, 2007

CONTACT: Tristan Bunner: 805.798.5096, calfoodworker [at] gmail.com

Student Worker Action Group

CAL STUDENT WORKERS GET INTERNATIONAL PRESS COVERAGE
Both Labourstart.org and Iww.org have now covered their struggle for equal pay!!

The struggle of UC Berkeley student workers fighting for equal pay has now received international press coverage. The global labor news and support website, Labourstart.org, has posted an article written by a Cal student worker to its news page, bringing the exposure of the workers’ plight to a whole new level. Previously, the article had also been published on Indybay.org and Iww.org.

See the coverage at http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=USA and http://www.iww.org/en/node/3397

The article is also included below.

Last winter, Berkeley students working for Cal Dining formed the Student Worker Action Group (SWAG) after they discovered that they were paid $2.14/hr less than their coworkers, including high school and community college students working part time. Since then they have had several public events to raise awareness of this act of discrimination by UC against its own students. Over 500 comment cards of support were collected from Cal students and staff in March, but still the University has not given its own students equal pay.

That is why this week was named Cal Student Worker Blitz Week, with a series of daily public events, with the largest yet to come: a rally on Friday, May 4 at 2pm in Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley Campus. So far, SWAG members have held informational pickets at all of the Dining Commons where students eat, they have performed a 20% strike to protest the 20% difference in pay, and they have given other Cal students a sample of what the UC Labor Relations Department has been giving them: BS excuses (in the form of chocolate pudding). Over 400 signatures were collected during the 20% strike on Monday, April 30 and Tuesday May 2nd, and they will all be displayed, along with the comment cards from March, at the Cal Student Workers’ Rally for Equal Pay being held tomorrow, Friday, May 4, at 2pm on Sproul Plaza.


STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR SOMETHING: “EQUAL PAY TODAY!”


UPCOMING EVENTS OF BLITZ WEEK

FRIDAY: SUPPORT RALLY ON SPROUL PLAZA, 2pm

Cal Student Workers Fight For Equal Pay
By Tristan Bunner, Bay Area IWW
(Tristan is an IWW member, a Cal student and a worker at Foothill Dining Commons. He is a founding member of Student Worker Action Group.)

At the University of California, Berkeley, student workers are fighting for equal pay. Cal students who work for the school's dining facilities, run by Cal Dining, get paid over $2/hr less than their coworkers who do the same work. The starting wage for Cal students under the classification "Student Food Service Worker" is $9.11/ hr, while the starting wage for "Food Service Workers", including high school and community college students working part time, is $11.25/hr, and another raise may be coming soon.

The difference began in August 2006, when a new union contract raised the wage of full time workers from $9.11/hr to the new rate. This raise was then applied to unrepresented part-time workers, but not to Cal students. When Cal student workers found out about the pay difference they got together and began to organize. In December 2006 they formed the Student Worker Action Group (SWAG), and began their fight for equal pay.

The University claims that the raise is not applicable to Cal students, because their main priority at the University is to learn, not to earn a living. The student workers point out that, generally, high school students' main priority is not to earn a living either, yet they still receive the higher wage. Other reasons that the University gives for the continued pay inequity is that students have less responsibilities than other workers and that they receive benefits that other workers do not in hiring priority and scheduling flexibility. SWAG disputes all of these points, saying that students have the same responsibilities as other workers, and sometimes hold supervisory positions. SWAG also claims that what the University calls benefits are not actually benefits at all: priority in hiring was originally meant to give Cal students a financial boost, but now it is in fact harmful because of the unequal pay. While there may be some flexibility to student workers' scheduling, SWAG says, they have to balance work with other important parts of their life, just like any other worker, and the needs of their workplace determines their work schedule in the end. Above all, SWAG questions how these excuses could be legitimate if less than a year ago all of the workers were paid the same rate. "We work just as hard as they do; we deserve the same wages," says SWAG member and worker at Foothill Dining Commons, Rachel Padnick.

Through March and April, students and supporters collected over 500+ comment cards of support during an event titled "Comment Card Flood" and gathered 97 signatures from non-student coworkers. After a fruitless meeting with University of California, Berkeley's Department of Labor Relations on April 17, 2007, SWAG decided that more needed to be done to win their demands.

All this week, they have been out on the University's campus, trying to spread the word of their struggle to their fellow students and community members. Actions have included informational pickets outside of Cal Dining facilities, a "20% strike" to make up for the 20% difference in pay, and a "sampling" of "UC Labor Relations' BS" (chocolate pudding standing in) on UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza. The week's events will culminate in a support rally this Friday at 2pm, also on Sproul Plaza.

The demands that SWAG makes and is fighting to win are:

Acknowledgement of student workers' equal responsibilities!! This includes:

* 1.Equal pay to Food Service Workers.
* 2.Retroactive from August 2006 (the time the wage difference began).
* 3. Bimonthly paychecks.
* 4.All of the above reflected by May 8th 2007.