Don’t write off UCLA labor because media ignores it

  Shirin Vossoughi Vossoughi is a
third-year history and international development studies student.
Speak your mind and e-mail her at [email protected].
Click Here for more articles by Shirin Vossoughi

Joyful Hollywood writers toasting one another, powerful
producers at ease, and even Mayor Riordan responding with relief
while vacationing in Acapulco. This was the scene earlier this
month when the Writer’s Guild of America and the Alliance of
Motion Picture and Television Producers agreed to a tentative
three-year contract, ending looming threats of a writers’
strike.

Lunging at this high-profile labor battle, the media had a field
day outlining the history of the guild as well as key points in the
settlement and examining the pressures faced by television and
screen writers. The front page of the L.A. Times told us to rest
easy as the terrible threat of reruns on TV and no big studio
movies by Christmas had been avoided.

Meanwhile, across the nation and around the world, workers are
organizing every day to earn a living wage, put food on the table,
and obtain adequate health care. Yet the struggles of service
workers, farmers, janitors and many others to gain not only
increased wages and benefits, but also respect in the current
system, are silenced by the mainstream media as negotiations in the
multi-billion dollar entertainment industry take center stage.

On May 1, International Worker’s Day, people worldwide
took to the streets to demand better worker treatment. In Sao
Paulo, Brazil, 2 million people organized to denounce corruption,
demand fair wages, and shorten the work-week to 40 hours. In
Central America, 20,000 Hondurans marched against dollarization of
the economy and open market policies.

Costa Rican workers protested the privatization of medical
services, and Guatemalans demanded an end to unemployment,
inflation and poverty, criticizing the globalization of their
economy. Even in London, protesters waved banners designed to look
like blood-soaked dollar signs outside World Bank offices,
demanding debt cancellation for underdeveloped countries.

In every city, workers and organizers were met with strong
police opposition. At a May Day march in Long Beach, over 100
protesters were attacked by police. As one reporter for the
Independent Media Center states, “This was one of the worst,
most brutal police responses to an attempt to exercise free speech
and the right to assembly I’ve ever witnessed.”

But in addition to this annual call for workers’ rights,
struggles for respect and equal distribution continue everyday. In
many places, students are organizing with campus unions to ensure
that university employees are paid a living wage.

Last week, students at Harvard University ended a three-week
sit-in demanding fair wages for the school’s lowest-paid
workers, an end subcontracting, and a re-examination of university
wage policies.

At UCSD, students and community members are helping to organize
for better wages and respect for non-union janitors. Alejandra
Rodriguez, a pro-union janitor, had been working two jobs and 16
hours a day when she was fired after speaking up at an anti-union
meeting. UCSD janitors are currently paid poverty wages beginning
at $6.25 an hour with no benefits.

As many as 75 such living wage campaigns are underway across the
country. But we don’t need to look far from our own campus to
see the daily struggles of workers for basic rights. Hundreds of
workers from the UCLA Medical Center and the local AFSME union
(American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), as
well as students and community members, rallied on May 1 to kick
off negotiations with Medical Center management for a new
contract.

  Illustration by ZACH LOPEZ/Daily Bruin Among their
demands are benefits for per-diems and temp workers, an end to
subcontracting, a fair wage, a voice in staffing, and safe working
environments. Management is currently reviewing the existing
contract along with the one devised by the employees.

At the faculty center, employees have been organizing for years
to correct what they see as grave injustice. Among their concrete
goals are shifting more casual workers to career status, which
brings increased benefits, creating a new contract, and putting an
end to the ongoing problem of short staffing.

However, some of the deeper complaints by workers include
constant disrespect and intimidation from managers. Although
roughly 70 percent of employees are involved in the union, many do
not wear stickers or union T-shirts to avoid a negative reaction
from management. Such reactions include attempts to prohibit
workers from speaking Spanish for fear that they will discuss
organizing.

At dorm cafeterias, workers face similar battles. For example,
many employees are unable to call in sick for fear of getting
written-up, a penalty that affects long-term promotion. Employees
must often walk on eggshells to avoid any conflicts with management
that result in such write-ups.

If UCLA is truly the close community it claims to be, every
member of that community should receive a fair wage and the right
to work in a safe, respectful environment. The fact that the
salaries of administrators continue to rise while workers push for
a living wage should be unacceptable to everyone at UCLA.

The struggles represented on our campus, however, are not
limited to those who clean the buildings at night, prepare food
each day, or perform the many other jobs that keep UCLA
functioning. From garment workers who sew UCLA sweatshirts to the
farm workers who pick Taco Bell’s tomatoes, laborers
worldwide stand behind every aspect of campus. But as unconscious
students and consumers, we often forget the human effort behind
such commodities.

Our very own Taco Bell is a major buyer of Immokalee tomatoes.
The Coalition of Immokalee workers in southern Florida has
organized a boycott of Taco Bell to put an end to sub-poverty level
working conditions. These conditions include a wage of roughly
$7,500 per year, zero benefits and deplorable housing, as many farm
workers live in single-wide trailers.

Despite three general strikes, including a 30-day hunger strike
by six workers, Taco Bell continually responds that they do not
consider this their problem. Not only is it their problem, but it
is one that we are directly responsible for as well.

Immokalee workers look to California as a very important state,
not only because Taco Bell’s headquarters are in Irvine, but
also because there is a history of strong student activism here.
These workers are paid 40 cents for a bucket of tomatoes, the same
wage they earned in 1970.

As Greg Asbed, an Immokalee organizer, states, “Think
about the food you eat. Next time you buy a taco or chalupa, look
at the tomatoes and think about the person who picked
them.”

While the media has succeeded in adding a human dimension to
Hollywood writers’ labor battle, they have failed to
acknowledge the human beings that touch and shape every aspect of
our daily lives. As easy as it may be for some to buy food from
Taco Bell or walk by a UCLA employee without smiling or saying
“thank you,” it does not sever our connected lives. Nor
can it erase the reality of exploitation within the halls of an
institution that claims to teach future leaders how to make a
difference in the world.

To get involved with labor issues on and off campus, contact the
Student Labor Action Committee or Conciencia Libre at [email protected].