An ASUC resolution in support of the 2007-2008 American Federation n of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3299 contract campaign will be considered by an ASUC committee this week.

The resolution, authored in part by union intern Kim Dam, asks that the association continuously support union members in their negotiations for a fair labor contract.

The union represents more than 20,000 service and patient care workers across the University of California system, including service workers on the UC Berkeley campus.

"The passing of this resolution would be extremely symbolic," said CalSERVE Senator Danielle Duong, one of the sponsors of the resolution. "It would impact the UC workers positively and show them that the students are backing them on this."

According to the resolution, the contract campaign is part of an ongoing effort to promote a wage increase for service workers, establish an automatic steps system to guarantee workers an annual wage increase and set in place pension and health care plans.

In addition to Duong, the resolution is sponsored by CalSERVE senators Gabriela Urena, Maurice Seaty and Roxanne Winston, next year's ASUC president-elect. The resolution will be considered by an ASUC committee this week and, if passed, will go before the full ASUC Senate on Wednesday.

Officials said they decided to write the resolution after similar steps were taken at other campuses.

"There's already a bill passed in three other UCs," Dam said. "I was able to look at that and engineer something similar to that."

Those resolutions, which were passed at UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, provided part of the basis for the association's resolution.

"We wanted to be in solidarity with the other UC campuses that are working on this issue," Duong said.

Currently, approximately 10,000 union members in AFSCME Local 3299 earn less than $16 an hour, said Anabel Paez, a union intern who helped write the bill.

"When you compare the wage of the custodial workers here, the workers at the community colleges earn about two dollars more, and that's here in the Bay Area," she said. "We're not even asking for the living standard ... we're just asking for a low increase."

Tags: ASUC SENATE, AFSCME LOCAL 3299