UC Front Line Staff Plans Thursday Protests of Executive Pay and Golden Handshakes

–MEDIA ADVISORY–

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 30, 2013
CONTACT: Liz Perlman, (510) 316-4772, [email protected]  —  Heather Carroll-Fisher, (415) 601-7721, [email protected]

AFSCME 3299 says Executive Excess being “subsidized by rising student tuition, California taxpayers, and cuts to the livelihood of thousands of the UC system’s lowest paid workers.”

Oakland: This Thursday (1/31/13), frontline UC workers and students will stage system-wide protests at all ten campuses and five medical centers to highlight the growing problem of management bloat and rising executive compensation within the UC system.
This week’s protests come just days after California Governor Jerry Brown expressed his concern about lavish executive payouts at the January UC Regents’ meeting, followed by revelations that outgoing UC President Mark Yudof would be receiving a $230,000 annual pension — after just five years of service.

Yudof’s generous retirement package is increasingly common among UC Executives. For the 194 members of the UC system’s Senior Management Group, lifetime pension payouts could reach as high as $541 million.

“Management bloat and golden handshakes have become a cancer on the UC system that diverts needed resources away from academic quality and patient care,” said AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger. “Ultimately, these excesses are being subsidized by rising student tuition, cuts to frontline staffing at UC Medical Centers, California taxpayers, and cuts to the livelihood of thousands of the UC system’s lowest paid workers. That’s not how you build a strong middle class and a world class healthcare delivery system—it’s how you destroy them. It’s time for UC Administrators to get their priorities straight.”

Friday’s protests will include picket lines and visits to Executive offices asking for UC Administrators to cut executive pay and pensions before considering any further tuition hikes, staffing cuts, or reductions in frontline workers benefits.

WHO: UC Patient Care and Service workers joined by nurses, students, researchers, and patients.
WHAT: Systemwide Protest of skyrocketing executive compensation and golden handshakes.
WHERE: All five UC Medical Centers and all 10 UC Campuses • For individual campus locations and times, click here.
WHEN: Thursday, January 31, 2013 • For individual campus locations and times, click here.
AFSCME 3299 is the largest collective bargaining unit within the University of California system, representing more than 22,000 Service and Patient Care Technical Workers at ten campuses and five Medical Centers. Learn More at www.afscme3299.org, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/afscme3299.



Background: Misguided Priorities at the University of California
• Since 2002, in-state tuition at the University of California has more than tripled.[1]
• California enrollment at UC and CSU has declined by twenty percent over the past five years[2], while out-of-state enrollment has doubled since 2009.[3]  PPIC now projects that California will fall one million college graduates short of economic demand by 2025.[4]
• Since 2008, more than 4,400 UC employees have been laid off, 3,570 positions eliminated, faculty hiring deferred, class sizes increased, and counseling and library hours have been reduced.[5]
• Between 2008 and 2011, new management staff within the UC system grew by 9 percent and nearly a third of all new employee hires were new managers.[6] During the same period, the number of UC employees earning more than $200,000 per year grew by 44 percent.[7]
• Between 2004 and 2011, the number of UC employees earning more than $400,000 per year grew by almost 500%–these “elite” UC employees collect more than $320 million annually.[8]
• Studies show that thousands of career UC workers can’t afford food, rent and other basic necessities.[9] Service workers at UC earn an average of $35,000 per year,[10] and UC Executives are asking them to accept additional wage and benefit cuts. As of January 31, 2013, UC’s 22,000 patient care technical and service workers will each be without a contract.
• While top UC Executives receive pension payouts in excess of $10,000 per month plus an additional supplemental benefit,[11] low-wage UC workers – who don’t live as long[12] and are at greater risk for health problems[13] – take home less than $1,000 per month. UC is proposing pension changes that would require low wage staff to work five years longer, contribute more for the same take home benefit, and pay higher healthcare premiums—equal to a 105% pay cut at retirement after 20 years of service for some of the lower paid workers.
• An independent audit of UC’s pension plan[14] has revealed that UC Administrators are using an unconventional actuarial model that artificially inflates its near-term pension liabilities for rank and file employees by more than a billion dollars over the next four years. UC Administrators have refused repeated requests for an open hearing on the findings of this audit.[15]
1. http://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/2864/restore2012-13
2. Ibid.
3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/california-nonresident-enrollment-budget-cuts_n_1859840.html
4. Ibid.
5. http://budget.universityofcalifornia.edu/files/2011/12/Budget_fact_11.29.11.pdf, http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/jul12/f1.pdf and http://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/documents/accountabilityreport12.pdf
6. UC Office of the President. Corporate Personnel System: Employee Headcount Statistics from October of each year, http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/uwnews/stat/
7. Based on payroll data at https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
8. Analysis of UC salary and payroll data, http://ucpay.globl.org/, https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
9. http://publicsociology.berkeley.edu/publications/betrayal/betrayal.pdf; http://www.insightcced.org/uploads/publications/wd/High-Ideals-Low-Pay.pdf; http://www.workingeastbay.org/downloads/Failing%20California_s%20Communities.pdf
10. University of California Retirement Plan data received on June 28, 2012, as part of a Request for Information from UC Office of the President.
11. UC Office of the President Corporate Personnel Payroll Data. UC Office of the President. “University of California Employee Pay,” http://ucpay.globl.org/; Society of Actuaries, “The RP-2000 Mortality Tables.” http://atyourservice.ucop.edu/employees/policies_employee_labor_relations/personnel_policies/ii71.html
12. http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21568745-longevity-and-pension-age-rich-are-different?frsc=dg%7Cc
13. http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/28878
14. University of California Retirement Plan Actuarial Briefing for Coalition of UC Unions,” William Fornia, FSA, Pension Trustee Advisors, October 5, 2012 https://afscme3299.org/documents/actions/Actuarial-Briefing-and-Impact-of-Tier-2013-Nov1.pdf