Not even a full block away from my last interview, I find myself sitting in the bedroom of two local UCLA students who have agreed to sit down to talk. We talk about everything from work responsibilities to tough customers, and generally they seemed to like their work at UCLA. However, unlike ResLife and Powell Library, there were some managerial issues that came up in this episode.
Without giving away too many spoilers, one of my guests had a boss who simply wouldn’t speak to her and the other had a boss who said she was a little…. racially insensitive.
One topic that caught me particularly by surprise was the discussion of AFSCME, one of the largest labor unions that is active across the University of California. They represent custodial and maintenance workers, as well as all kinds of other jobs on campus that are service oriented and typically filled by full-time staff who are not students. They protest quite a bit, and during my time at UCLA I remember being woken up quite a bit by some of their rallies for a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA).
Mark and I, the day before, were just talking about whether or not we are obligated to stand in solidarity and help them protest anytime they are negotiating. While he and I agreed that we would have a hypothetical obligation, Katie informed me that she and her co-workers had already stood with AFSCME. One of her co-workers was a full-time barista who was not a student, and as a show of solidarity the entire student staff at Kerckhoff Coffee House joined her in protest.
I may not have all of the answers, but I seem to be finding a lot of consistent trends. Students want better communication between the University and its employees, workers generally want to be paid more, and the more we organize and come together the easier it becomes to achieve these goals.
Isaac Edejer 