UCI community protests cuts, fees

“Lay off Yudof! Lay off Yudof!”

The breeze carried a chorus of angry voices as hundreds of UC Irvine students, faculty members and staff spent parts of Thursday — the first day of classes — protesting against layoffs, furloughs and fee hikes slated for the University of California system. At a noontime rally, students and staff hoisted signs that read “Cuts to education never heal,” “UC works because we do — Stop the layoffs” and “Cut the crap, not the budget.”

A handwritten sign posted on an arts building bulletin board read, “Graduating in debt builds character.”

The state has directed UCI and the other UC campuses to cut more than $800 million from the University of California budget, prompting campus leaders to instruct staff to take furlough days that will cost between 4% and 10% of each employee’s pay. Students and employees statewide have been protesting the decision.

The assembled protesters at UCI censured the efforts of UC President Mark Yudof. When he took office last summer he inherited an embattled collection of universities and medical centers facing unprecedented state budget cuts.

His reported salary at the time he took his new post was $591,084 per year.

UCI’s Day of Action included an interactive drama, morning and evening teach-ins, rallies and picket lines.

Students spoke of friends who were unable to attend a university this year due to simultaneous tuition increases and financial aid cuts.

Representatives of laid-off and furloughed employees denounced university system executives who have accepted salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, while minimum-wage workers have lost their jobs.

Dianna Sahhar, president of the local branch of the Coalition of University Employees, which represents the university system’s clerical employees, said the union’s employees are paid 24% below market rate, despite being told seven years ago that the problem would be rectified.

She said many employees are unable to buy homes and cars, get married, have children or participate in other “normal” aspects of human life due to their low pay.

With furloughs proposed by Yudof, that discrepancy could climb to more than 30%, Sahhar said.

“This is a demeaning step backwards, not forwards,” she said.

Staff members believe the University of California system should dip into a more-than-$5-billion emergency reserve it keeps to make up the $813-million shortfall, rather than ask staff and students to make up the difference in layoffs, furloughs and fee increases.

The UC system may decide to increase fees by more than 30% in the coming school year.

“We are engaged in a tremendous struggle with UC management right now,” Sahhar said. “They hoard money; they borrow money for buildings and for executive pay,” she said, but not for students or everyday staff.

“We the staff, the faculty and the students keep UC running,” Sahhar said. “We are the heartbeat of the UC.”