Summer dining team faces temporary layoffs and curtailments
For two weeks over the summer, UCLA dining employee Verenice Ruize will take a mandatory unpaid leave from her job working at Rendezvous and Bruin Cafe.
By Suzy Strutner
June 6, 2010 10:04 p.m.
Zenoria Robles couldn’t wait to visit her parents in Mexico this summer. Then the Hedrick Hall dining employee of 30 years received a letter telling her she’d be taking two unpaid weeks off over the student break.
“Now I can’t visit my parents this year,” Robles said. “I’m the only one in my family who works. I have to pay rent and bills.”
Every UCLA dining team member must comply with this summer’s temporary layoffs, whose dates are determined by dining managers.
Combined with other efforts, the layoffs will save Housing & Hospitality Services about $1.7 million and allow next year’s housing fees to increase by only 3 percent, said Pete Angelis, assistant vice chancellor of UCLA Housing & Hospitality Services, in an e-mail statement.
“The summer was identified as the best time for us to reduce hours as most of our students are not on campus,” Angelis said in the e-mail, adding that only about 200 dining employees work at UCLA in the summer months, while nearly 550 do during the school year.
Curtailment periods are often implemented during the summer as well, and differ from temporary layoffs because employees are allowed to use vacation or compensatory time, Angelis said in an e-mail.
While curtailment periods have been implemented in past years, Angelis said temporary layoffs will only be implemented for summer 2010.
A number of employees, especially those already facing curtailment periods, said they are stressed about the layoffs.
At the beginning of May, Rendezvous employee Verenice Ruiz said she received a letter announcing which workless dates would constitute her temporary layoff.
“I could get another job for that time, but it’s such a short break,” she said. “I know things are bad with the economy, but it shouldn’t be like this.”
The 22-year-old said she will have a tough time paying summer rent for her and her mother, as she’s been required to take an additional two-week curtailment break, making for a month without pay this summer.
“Team members have understandably relayed their disappointment, … and I can certainly sympathize with their position,” Angelis said in the e-mail. “However, it should be understood that loss of income has occurred throughout most of our campus, not just in the dining operation.”
Though this loss of income may be affecting other campus employment systems, dining team member Rose Middleton said it doesn’t change the way she feels.
“This is not good; I’m a single mom,” Middleton said. “I have to pay rent, and I have to buy food. This will affect my way of living.”
