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Boycott Leads to Better Jobs

Nearly 100 subcontracted custodians and parking attendants at the University of California-Berkeley campus will soon be directly employed by the university, the successful outcome of efforts by AFSCME Local 3299 to stop the use of for-profit contractors to perform the work.
Boycott Leads to Better Jobs
By Kevin Brown ·
Boycott Leads to Better Jobs
AFSCME 3299 members celebrate their victory.

Nearly 100 subcontracted custodians and parking attendants at the University of California-Berkeley campus will soon be directly employed by the university, the successful outcome of efforts by AFSCME Local 3299 to stop the use of for-profit contractors to perform the work.

As a result of Local 3299’s efforts, UC Berkeley officials agreed to offer the subcontracted custodians and parking attendants direct employment with the university before the end of April 2016. 

“This agreement is an important first step that also ends the exploitation of our colleagues at UC Berkeley, provides proven professionals to help the campus meet its permanent staffing needs, and reduces the drain on California’s taxpayer subsidized social safety net by pulling nearly 100 families out of poverty,” said Local 3299 Pres. Kathryn Lybarger, also an AFSCME International vice president.

“We are deeply grateful to the many state and local elected officials, UC faculty, students and civic leaders who stood up against our first-class public university’s efforts to treat some of its workers as second class,” Lybarger added.

Local 3299 – the largest union representing UC employees – engaged in a year of campaigning by workers employed by three different UC Berkeley contractors. The activism included a nearly two-month speakers’ boycott that received enormous support from students, workers, community leaders and elected officials. 

The university faced widespread allegations of state and federal labor law violations, two recent state labor board complaints over its use and treatment of subcontracted workers, and a recent study by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education documenting the hardships faced by these types of workers across California.

The workers affected by the agreement already have more than 440 years of combined experience working at UC Berkeley, but because they’ve been employed by low-wage contractors, have received only a fraction of the wages of directly employed UC workers who do the same jobs.

“I’m not asking for special treatment – just for the dignity and respect that my 20-plus years of service to the University of California demands,” said Antonio Ruiz, a parking attendant. “For me, becoming a UC employee means I no longer need to work two jobs and worry about whether my employer will pay me for all the hours I’ve worked. Instead, it means one job, a living wage and the ability to spend time with my children.”

Among those who honored the speakers’ boycott by canceling or postponing planned engagements at UC Berkeley were Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Sens. Carol Liu and Loni Hancock, Assembly member Tony Thurmond, National Domestic Workers Alliance Dir. Ai-Jen Poo, GLAAD Pres. Sarah Kate Ellis, NO on H8 Campaign founder Adam Bouska, and human rights activist Angela Davis. The Berkeley City Council and Associated Students of UC Berkeley also passed resolutions in support of the boycott.

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