Letters to the Editor
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 7, 2003 9:00 p.m.
UCLA should not subcontract workers
I completely agree with Blanca Martinez’s Daily Bruin
submission “UCLA must take responsibility for its
subcontracted workers” (May 2) on the disconcerting fact that
UCLA subcontracts workers.
It embarrasses me to know that by being a student here at UCLA,
I am representing an institution with sweatshop conditions for its
employees. No worker at UCLA should have sick children at home
because the university refuses to hire them directly, which would
in turn provide them with health benefits for themselves and for
their families.
As students, faculty and staff, we need to speak up and demand
that all the subcontracted workers be taken in as direct UCLA
employees. This is an urgent matter; it is simply unacceptable to
have people living in the conditions that Blanca described. So,
let’s speak up and fight for a just and safe working
place.
Vanessa Bransburg Fourth-year, sociology student Student
Worker Front member
Rally was not reason for workers’
rehiring
In a May 5 endorsement article, there was an implication that
two El Camino College lunch workers fired were later re-contracted
due to student outcry. It is true that we effectively rallied just
under 2,000 students over the issue, giving the administration a
real headache and forcing the issue to a level not seen before on
the campus.
Unfortunately, however; the Board of Trustees (a very old and
traditional group of individuals accustomed to rubber stamping
whatever the President wished) passed a contract indirectly causing
the workers to lose their jobs.
The mix-up must have been that I said that I was unsuccessful in
rallying the student body against the administration’s
action.
Joshua Lawson General Representative
candidate
Independence Week story shows bias
With the Bruin Israeli Independence Week news story,
“Israel Independence Week to begin” (May 5), the subtle
truth jumps off the page. The story reflects a deep media bias not
unlike that of the embedded reporters in Iraq for the U.S. war who
wrote only one side of the “war” ““ really an
unprovoked U.S. attack for the never-to-be-found weapons of mass
destruction.
The occupation, fighting, and brutality ““ the tearing down
of homes, the expansion, and the murder of often non-violent,
sometimes David-like stone throwing youth, is experienced in
Palestine ““ not Israel. This is instigated by the IDF, the
Israeli “Defense” Forces in their unrelenting,
continued drive since the inception of the State of Israel in l948
only to expand, take more land, more homes ““ more lives.
Got education? Be on notice you will probably find it minimally
this “Israeli Independence Week.”
Andrew Kay Liberman UCLA Extension
