ASUCLA board postpones decision on worker rights

BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Pushing for a "card
check" to help unionize ASUCLA career employees, USAC President
Karren Lane speaks before the Board of
Directors.

By Rachel Makabi
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

It wasn’t what either side expected.

One hundred students, union members and state officials packed
themselves into the Associated Students of UCLA Board of Directors
meeting Friday, expecting them to recognize non-student
workers’ rights to form a union.

The board did not plan to give a definitive answer until their
May 24 meeting because of technicalities in the proposal.

Instead, the board decided to vote in special session in two
weeks, leaving both sides pleased with the results and anxiously
preparing for the final decision.

The students and union members flocked to the meeting to protest
the low wages and lack of benefits that ASUCLA gives its 120
non-student employees, who have not been in a union since 1995 when
ASUCLA subcontracted them to a temp agency.

Employees, like Alfredo Gomez and Flores Sigifreddo, who spoke
at Friday’s meeting, said they receive wages either at or a
little above minimum wage and have never received a paid sick day
or vacation day.

They requested that the board members recognize a card check, by
which all employees who are interested in forming a union with the
American Federation of State and Municipal Employees sign cards
showing their intent. Under the request, if a majority of the
employees show they want a union, then the board would have to
recognize that decision.

“I believe and hope that throughout ASUCLA, there is a
recognition that workers do have the right to organize and have a
voice on the job,” said AFSCME organizer Brian Rudiger before
Friday’s meeting.

“Which is why we are doing the card check, it’s a
way to create a non confrontational way in which employees can
demonstrate their opinions and their voice,” he
continued.

The undergraduate student body also supports a card check, said
Undergraduate Students Association Council President Karren Lane,
referring to the unanimously-approved resolution passed at last
Tuesday’s USAC meeting asking the board to accept the card
check.

Though students and AFSCME members were hoping the board would
make a decision on Friday, Board member Marilyn Gray said they
could not because the item was not placed on the agenda as an
action item.

In addition, board members said they did not know enough about
the consequences of accepting a card check to make a decision,
adding that even though workers have been organizing for months,
board members did not hear about the situation until a week before
the meeting. As a result, they did not want to vote on the issue
until their next board meeting in four weeks.

“We really just heard about this issue last
Thursday,” said ASUCLA executive director Patricia Eastman.
“There is still a multitude of questions that needs to be
answered.”

Students and AFSCME members quickly responded to the
board’s decision to wait until their next meeting to
vote.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said AFSCME
attorney Ricardo Ochoa. “The more this drags on, the more
vulnerable the workers are.”

Ochoa added that many workers have faced threats of losing their
jobs for deciding to join the union in recent weeks, and that he is
looking into the allegations and is preparing to take legal action,
though he “doesn’t want to go down that
road.”

After several minutes of arguments, Board member Dave Lowenstein
proposed having a special meeting to vote on the card check in two
weeks. This would give board members the necessary time to inform
themselves about the situation while not delaying the process any
longer than necessary, he said.

Lowenstein’s proposal unanimously passed.