STATEMENT: AFSCME 3299 BLASTS UC TUITION HIKE THREAT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 6, 2014

CONTACT: Todd Stenhouse, (916) 397-1131, [email protected]

Lybarger: UC squandering millions on Executive Pay, Perks, and Outsourcing Contracts

Oakland: The University of California’s largest employee union today blasted Administrators over their threat of a five year tuition hike if state funding is not dramatically increased.

The proposed tuition hike was first reported by the Sacramento Bee.

UC’s threat of tuition hikes comes just weeks after the system awarded pay increases as high as 20% to five of its highest paid employees, as well as a six figure bonus to its Vice President of Health Services Jack Stobo. The number of UC employees receiving over $250,000 per year in salary has nearly doubled since 2008 (As of 2013, 3413 UC employees made more than $250K per year) UC also awards these same employees millions in extra perks and pension benefits that are not subject to the limitations of the 2012 State Pension Reform law that applies to California State Univeristy and Community College employees.

In recent weeks, AFSCME 3299 has also uncovered millions of dollars that UC is squandering by outsourcing campus and medical center custodial work to contractors that pay their employees rock bottom wages with no benefits. As noted in a recent Sacramento Bee Op-Ed by AFSCME Local 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger—just two of the dozens of such contracts UC has systemwide—cost as much as a million dollars more than it would have cost to insource these subcontracted workers as career UC employees with fair wages, benefits and a voice on the job.

Read Lybarger’s Sacramento Bee Opinion Column Here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article3542845.html

In response to today’s announcement by UC Administrators, Lybarger has released the following statement:

“If UC wants to regain the trust of California lawmakers, the starting point should be to stop squandering millions of public dollars on oversized executive compensation and outsourcing contracts.  The cost of these misguided priorities has already left UC facilities dangerously short staffed, and undermined the California Master Plan guarantee for thousands of qualified students in our state. Demanding more money from students and taxpayers without first correcting the tone-deaf mismanagement that has been a catalyst for UC’s financial problems is a non-starter.”