Workers picket at UCI

Michael Miller

UC Irvine service workers joined in a statewide strike Thursday as

they picketed for guaranteed pay increases, possibilities for

advancement and other rights they claim the University of California

has denied them.

About 100 people, including service workers, professors and

student activists, crowded by the administration building on Ring

Road throughout the day to demonstrate and chant slogans. According

to the UC Irvine Human Resources office, only 75 of the campus’ 300

service workers -- including custodians, cooks and housekeepers --

took off work for the one-day strike. The university said that any

workers who did not report to duty on Thursday would be docked the

day’s pay but would receive no other penalty.

“We want our service employees to come back to work, and they’ve

promised to only strike for one day,” said Noel Van Nyhuis, a

spokesman for the University of California. “When they come back to

work, we want to proceed as normally as possible, and the university

is willing to go back to the negotiating table and work out a fair

contract for our service workers.”

In March, the UC service workers union voted to strike on April 14

if the university did not meet a lengthy list of demands, most of

them concerning wages, training and possibility of advancement. In

the last week of March, the union and university went through a

fact-finding process with a state-appointed mediator. UC officials

claimed that the Thursday strike was unlawful because the two sides

had not yet reached an impasse in their negotiations.

Supporters of the strike denied the charges, saying that the talks

reached an impasse when the university offered a deal that was

unacceptable to the union.

“The University of California has made a final offer and they’ve

shown unwillingness to move,” said Matthew Cardinale, a graduate

student activist who helped to organize the strike. “If that’s not an

impasse, I don’t know what is.”

At the rally on Thursday, the striking workers were joined by a

number of other activist groups who made speeches to the crowd

gathered on the steps. Among those offering support were Students for

Peace and Justice, the Coalition of University Employees and the

United Auto Workers, who backed a teaching-assistants strike at UCI

several years ago. Irvine Councilman Larry Agran and state Sen.

Joseph Dunn have both written letters to UC Irvine Chancellor Ralph

Cicerone voicing support for the service workers.