I remember studying in the main lounge of my residence hall last fall when a custodian came in to vacuum, apologizing for the noise in the process. This gesture surprised me because 1) I had been worried I was an inconvenience to him throughout the ordeal, 2) he was only doing his job, and 3) as a child, I was taught to respect my elders, so for someone older to humble himself before me enough to apologize was new to me.
It didn’t take long to realize where this attitude may have stemmed from, however. The custodial staff has been slipping in and out of the residence and campus halls in the early mornings since my freshman year, ungreeted by most students and made to feel like an inconvenience at best by those who acknowledged them. Those are usually the few students who wake up early enough to have their morning routines “disrupted” by such work.
Aside from the occasional reminder from our resident assistant to keep the bathrooms cleaner or sign a “thank you” poster, the UC workers who took care of our most basic needs — who provided us with a clean environment in which to study and function on a daily basis — remained invisible throughout my stay in the residence halls. They did not partake in our hall association meetings, in our socials, or share our holidays. And at the beginning of the year, when we were introduced to every resident assistant and resident director in the halls, the custodial staff remained unmentioned for the most part, the particular worker assigned to our floor unnamed until the very end of the year. It was clear there was a division between the students and hall staff and the custodial staff, a lack of acknowledgement that was unnecessary and impolite.
This veil was held back Monday, however, as members of the community’s custodians, food-service workers, drivers, groundskeepers and other UC employees who keep our campus up and running protested on Upper Sproul Plaza regarding a new pension plan. Though sparked by events that occurred in January, Monday’s protest came as a complete surprise to many UC Berkeley students, myself included, and was reportedly fueled by Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ unresponsiveness to meeting requests made by AFSCME Local 3299. Members of the union had made this request to negotiate a pension plan other than the new two-tier one that was implemented July 1.
This jolt was needed for a student like myself to open my eyes and delve deeper into issues I had noticed but chosen only to mildly discourage. Well, I greet the custodial staff with respect, I had thought, pleased with myself. I encourage other residents to do the same when the topic is brought up. What I didn’t acknowledge was my failure to develop past that point, no matter how unintentionally. I was still at a loss of what to discuss in a conversation or how much or how little to ask about without being offensive or outright annoying as UC employees went about their work. What I did know was that the UC workers I spoke to took immense pride in their work.
Maricruz Manzanarez, a senior custodian on campus, said AFSCME workers are simply trying to ensure that the quality they take pride in is consistently upheld. But in the face of increased deductibles and worker layoffs without an equal reduction in the workload, this quality is jeopardized.
According to Constancio Gonzalez, who has been a UC Berkeley food-service worker for the past 20 years, even work relationships would be jeopardized by these measures. The new contracts will create an unnecessary division between older workers and new workers (those hired within the past five years or less). New workers will be receiving a lower annual pension after retirement due to the contracts agreed on by current workers. While their predecessors fought for the eight-hour workday and days off, Gonzalez was concerned that current workers’ legacies would be nothing but a less dignified retirement.
And these recent fiscal changes affect UC workers in more implicit ways. For example, Luis Rodriguez, a UC employee working with the Disabled Students’ Program, remarked that budget cuts have already forced him to discontinue his education for the second time around. Rodriguez had returned to college in 2008 to get his bachelor’s degree in European history, a subject he is extremely passionate about, but was forced to withdraw due to the rising tuition and costs of living. The inaccessibility of this public institute also extends to many workers’ children and is only bound to increase with the division this looming “second-class shadow workforce” will create, according to AFSCME.
With many UC workers already having to take on second jobs to support their families, their fears of the impending changes are justifiable. There is no telling whether older workers will be laid off in favor of newer and less expensive employees once the new pension plan is put in place.
Though I’ve gained a greater understanding of the impact of these fiscal changes on UC workers, it remains unclear to me whether Dirks has the power to negotiate a new pension plan for them or is bound by predetermined budgets. I do know that as a member of the UC community, Dirks should take the time to acknowledge and appreciate the workers who keep our campus on point and do this with an intense pride.
As students, we should do the same. We can learn what issues affect UC workers and how we can support them as they incrementally support us in our success. With greater awareness, the next time such a protest takes place, it will not come as a surprise but will display students and faculty members standing in their rightful place alongside their fellow community members.
Amy Mostafa writes a Thursday column on cultural issues. Contact Amy Mostafa at [email protected].