Overtime pay for employees at the University of California rose significantly last year, totaling approximately $135 million in 2007, an increase some say is a result of unwise and ineffective labor practices by the university.

From 2006 to 2007, overtime pay rose by a total of 12.4 percent across the 10 UC campuses, said UC spokesperson Brad Hayward.

University officials said the increase in the total amount of overtime pay is due partly to rises in base salary, as was the case last year. Overtime pay typically increases if base salary increases.

Hayward said in an e-mail that, in the context of the payroll budget, overtime pay comprises a modest percentage.

"I think it would be important for students to understand that overtime is a very small part of the university's overall personnel costs ... approximately 1.5 percent of total gross pay," he said in the e-mail.

For the Berkeley campus specifically, overtime pay totaled more than $4 million last year, approximately a 12.4 percent increase from 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday.

Campus spokesperson Marie Felde said UC Berkeley manages overtime pay very carefully and utilizes it only when necessary to provide essential campus services.

According to the Chronicle's data, most of the overtime pay at UC Berkeley was used to pay for police and custodial services last year.

Though emergencies and unexpected situations, like the tree-sit protest, may require UCPD officers to perform overtime hours, the majority of the overtime pay results from hours spent manning campus events like concerts, dances and football games.

Felde said 58 percent of the campus's total overtime by police was time spent overseeing these events at no extra cost to the campus.

"(When) providing security and events management, overtime costs are recouped from the event provider so that the event sponsors, not state funds, pay for these services," she said.

Custodians were the second largest recipient of overtime pay, receiving in total almost $900,000 in overtime last year at UC Berkeley.

Despite copious overtime hours and many vacant custodial positions, these employees still completed their work and kept the campus within its budget, Felde said.

However, some labor employees and representatives have criticized the university's increasing reliance on overtime pay as ineffective, arguing that while it keeps costs low, it leaves the university short-staffed.

Lakesha Harrison, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents the university's custodial and health care workers, sided against the overtime increases.

"It's not a good thing to see people working that much overtime," Harrison said. "I wonder when these people have time to take care of themselves."

Harrison, a licensed vocational nurse at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital, attributed the recent jump in overtime to high turnover and uncompetitive salaries.

Community colleges and other employers offer more attractive wages, luring workers away from the UC system, Harrison said.

"The university is not doing what they need to do to recruit and retain workers," she said. "There has been a continual lag in wages, and each year the UC gets more and more behind."

Tags: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA