Temps hired to fix ongoing parking problem
By Rachel Makabi
May 20, 2003 9:00 p.m.
It’s a routine morning in Lot 8, where several workers are
busy directing drivers to double park into two parallel lines along
the cars already parked.
Because of the parking crunch at the university, which was
exacerbated by the construction of the new medical center, several
parking lots double-park cars ““ or stack park them.
To mitigate the parking problem, 65 workers in the lots work
eight hour days, year-round, directing traffic and moving cars.
Though many of these workers work full time and have been here
longer than most undergraduate students, the university does not
hire them directly, but through a subcontractor.
For the university, this means hiring an outside company to take
care of what officials call a temporary parking crisis. For the
workers, it means a full-time, near minimum-wage job with no
benefits.
UCLA can support and approve the decision to contract out for
services only when it is “consistent with protecting the core
teaching, research, and patient care functions of the individual
campus or medical center; is in response to a demonstrated, sound
business need; and minimizes to the extent possible the impact on
University staff,” according to the University Guidelines on
Contracting for Services.
The university has traditionally hired subcontracted workers for
expertise. For instance, an outside law firm is heading the
litigation on the UC’s suit against Enron.
At UCLA, work is typically subcontracted out when it is
considered “seasonal or irregular” or when the
university doesn’t have the expertise or financial resources
to put its own workers on a job, according to Lubbe Levin,
Assistant Vice Chancellor of Campus Human Resources.
But there are a lot of gray areas, particularly in the situation
of the stack parking workers. The issue has fueled debate between
the university and the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees ““Â the union seeking to represent the
workers as hired university employees.
“It is difficult to generalize,” Levin said.
“Each circumstance is unique, we do a careful analysis of
what our core business needs are.”
While the university says the workers will only be here until
new lots are opened, AFSCME members say the workers are providing
an ongoing core service and should be hired directly by the
university, even if their services will only be necessary for a
limited time.
“When folks have been here for three, four, even five
years ““ then it’s not temporary anymore,” said
AFSCME organizer Brian Rudiger. “If it is nine months from
now that stack parking is no longer needed, then we will deal with
that as it comes.”
If the university determines stack parking to be a core, ongoing
service ““ the way several students and union leaders already
see it ““ then the workers could be hired directly by the
university instead of going through a subcontractor.
The transportation services Web site says that there is stack
parking on campus because, “simply put, the demand for
parking at UCLA outnumbers the available spaces on
campus.”
There are currently over 54,000 students, faculty and staff on
campus, in addition to numerous daily visitors ““
approximately 121,000 vehicle trips to the university ““ which
are counted by an electronic monitoring system.
Even though the university will grow by 4,000 students over the
next few years ““ in addition to the faculty and staff to
serve them ““ the university does not plan on going beyond its
parking cap of approximately 21,000 parking spaces on campus.
According to the university’s Long Range Development Plan,
the additional undergraduate housing that will be built will allow
for the same number of parking spaces up through 2010. One of
UCLA’s goals is to transfer the university from a commuter to
a residential campus.
In addition to considering upcoming parking problems, the
university also has to take a critical look at its finances to see
what is more financially reasonable to do when deciding to
subcontract out, Levin said.
“If you think about the current contracts, it is important
to keep in mind that we have certain budget requirements with the
budget these days, it is virtually in everything we do,”
Levin said. “It would probably be more expensive to do all of
the work by the university, but again, I am saying that in a very
general way.”
The university also subcontracts the work of the people who
clean the parking structures at night ““ an ongoing core
service ““ because it would cost too much for the university
to buy the cleaning supplies on its own, according to Associate
Director of Transportation Services, Renee Fortier.
But because cleaning the lots is an ongoing service, the
university should hire the workers cleaning directly, Rudiger
said.
