Same Enemy, Same Fight!!
UC regents, administrators and executives often talk about “shared sacrifice” at the same time that they viciously attack us (workers and students) and force us to sacrifice to protect their wealth and power. The proof rests in that, no matter how bad the budget gets, these UC bosses receive substantial raises and bonuses annually.1 This last school year, for example, the UC bosses justified layoffs, pay cuts and time reductions for the lowest paid UC workers across the State while giving themselves raises and bonuses.1 Today, students, teachers, and workers continue to be forced to “bailout” California’s budget crisis through tuition hikes, wage cuts, and cutbacks in social services that prey on working-class communities and communities of color.
In this regard, outsourced labor is one more way for the UC bosses to balance their profit margins and bottom line on the backs of workers and students. Outsourcing, as a labor practice, forces workers to accept lower wages, fewer benefits, and increased workloads in order to compete with each other over jobs. This economic competition benefits the UC bosses because it cuts labor costs and increases the amount of money they can spend on themselves or their pet projects. Although outsourcing has been successfully eliminated from all other UC campuses, UC Irvine is the last campus that still uses this highly exploitative labor practice. The UC bosses' ultimate plan is to use preserve UCI's outsourcing model in order to reintroduce the practice of outsourcing into the rest of the UC system to deal with future budget problems.
Through ABM/ ABLE Industries, UCI currently outsources 150 custodians who do not receive the same wages, vision and dental insurance, retirement benefits, or vacation time as other UC employees because they are not hired directly by UCI. Even though they do the same work as other UC custodians and workers, UCI’s outsourced custodians are not treated equally.
After two years of unrelenting actions (by workers and students) against outsourcing at UCI, UCI’s administration and labor relations were forced to enter into discussions with us regarding the direct hiring (insourcing) of the ABM custodial workers. On June 5th 2010, we successfully insourced 17 custodial workers: 16 were formerly outsourced through ABM, and 1 was a UCI groundskeeper laid off due to departmental cuts in October 2009.
Only by uniting with outsourced workers and destroying all outsourcing practices within the UC system can we (workers and students) begin to reassert our full power over the UC!
Major updates since spring quarter:
- ABM’s three year contract with the university expired June 2010. ABLE industries won the new contract for the subcontracted custodial work at UCI.
- 17 workers have been successfully insourced and are now working directly for the university.
- Human Resources at UCI remains uncooperative with the insourcing of the remaining 130 subcontracted workers.
- Workers and students have resumed actions. Our first action was a letter delegation to Chancellor Drake’s office on September 15th.
- Our next action will be at the New Student Convocation for Welcome Week at UCI on September 20th. We will be meeting at 8am in front of the Bren Center. Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147592748611471
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