UCSF hires 2 dozen janitors who complained, lost their jobs

By Emily Green

Two dozen custodians who accused UCSF of causing them to lose their jobs after they complained about pay and work conditions have reached an agreement with the school, in what they described as a victory.

Under the deal, UCSF will hire the workers as in-house employees, meaning they will have better pay and the full range of benefits offered UCSF employees than they did when employed by an outside company.

This “is an important victory that offers a ladder out of poverty” for the workers, said AFSCME Local 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger, who represented them.

The agreement is likely to end a public relations nightmare for UCSF, which is the second-largest employer in town, behind only the city and county of San Francisco. In February, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution condemning UCSF and calling on it to “rectify serious breaches of workers’ rights.”

UCSF has vigorously maintained that it had done nothing wrong.

The dispute stems from 2014, when a third-party vendor, Impec, that provided janitorial work for UCSF slashed the pay of its custodians by about $8 an hour to the minimum wage of $10.74.

The workers, most of them Chinese immigrants, picketed UCSF and distributed petitions demanding better pay and working conditions. Shortly after, UCSF canceled its contract with the vendor and the workers were let go. UCSF hired a different third-party contractor to provide similar services.

UCSF hired 20 of the former Impec workers as in-house custodians, but not, the aggrieved workers’ alleged, the 24 who had been most outspoken about the pay cuts.

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[Source]: SF Gate