Campus insources workers after ongoing plans

By Kimberly Nielsen

After seven months of protests by campus employees and students, UC Berkeley finalized plans to insource 69 campus workers from three private contract companies last week.

The decision to insource workers was part of the Fair Wage/Fair Work Plan, a broader university movement aiming to support campus employees and raise their salaries, campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore said in an email. She added that campus officials have coordinated with AFSCME, a labor union representing UC workers, to work out appointment details since March.

The campus has offered employment to all formerly contracted night shift and athletic custodians, as well as campus parking attendants contracted through LAZ Parking, according to Gilmore. She also noted that workers from ABM and Performance First were also given priority employment with the university.

“This agreement shows the UC has the capacity to do the right thing and to pull people out of poverty, because a first-class university system doesn’t have second-class workers,” said Todd Stenhouse, the AFSCME Local 3299 spokesperson.

Campus officials will also discontinue contracting additional parking or custodial workers for the remainder of the existing service agreement, extending their efforts to remedy “grotesque injustice” endured by contracted workers on campus, according to Stenhouse.

Stenhouse noted that contracted campus employees work the same number of hours as their insourced counterparts but do not receive parallel university benefits, often work multiple jobs, rely on government aid such as food stamps and could be at greater risk for “abuses” such as wage theft.

For the full article, click on the link below.
[Source]: Daily Californian