UC raising minimum hourly wage to $15

The University of California will raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next three years for all employees, including part-time and contract workers.

Under a plan unveiled Wednesday at the university’s Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco, mandated hourly pay will increase to $13 this October, then by another dollar over each of the next two years, for any employee hired to work at least 20 hours per week. That will put the university well above the state of California, where the rate is set to rise to $10 per hour next year.

The policy comes amid the national “Fight for $15” campaign, led by labor unions, that has seen major cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles hike their minimum wage well above state and federal levels. On the same day, a wage board in New York recommended an increase to $15 for the state’s fast-food workers, who have been at the forefront of the movement.

Vice President Joe Biden was also in Los Angeles to campaign for raising the minimum wage. Earlier this week, Los Angeles County followed the city’s lead and agreed to boost its hourly rate to $15 by 2020.

UC President Janet Napolitano, the former secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama, said the raise was “the right thing to do for our workers and their families.”

“It’s the right thing to do to enhance the university’s leadership role,” she added, noting that UC is the first public university system in the country to set its minimum wage at $15.

The announcement came as regents considered a 3 percent raise for 21 senior administrators, including nine campus chancellors, which is expected to be approved Thursday.

UC estimates that the minimum wage change will affect about 3,200 hourly employees throughout the system, including custodial, food service and bookstore staff, lab assistants and student workers. The university employs more than 195,000 people throughout its 10 campuses, five medical centers and other locations.

By expanding the policy to include contractors, the impact will be felt even more broadly. New service contracts that the university enters into will include the minimum wage provision and other working-condition standards, addressing union complaints that some workers have been poorly treated by third-party companies.

“We wanted to plant the flag in the ground and say, ‘This is not acceptable,’ ” UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein said.

Though she could not provide an exact figure, Klein said the number of contract workers who make less than $15 per hour is “many times larger” than the approximately 3,200 university employees.

Praise for the plan immediately rolled in from top Democratic politicians, including U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a member of the regents. Both thanked UC on Twitter.

“The #FightFor15 has reached @UofCalifornia and I’m very glad that workers will move up to $15 within three years,” Newsom tweeted, urging California State University to do the same.

But Assembly Republican Leader Kristen Olsen worried that students would end up footing the bill for the pay raise.

“It is concerning that UC would implement this proposal just after spending an entire year arguing they do not have the funds necessary to keep tuition flat and enroll more California students,” she said in a statement.

She also slammed UC for extending the policy to private contractors: “The University should be teaching engineering, not spending student dollars to practice social engineering by limiting who campuses can do businesses with.”

Klein said the majority of affected employees work in auxiliary services or self-supporting enterprises such as the UC medical centers, which would pay for the minimum wage increase themselves. She said it will add an estimated $14 million per year to UC’s approximately $12.6 billion payroll, though the university anticipates that contractors will pass on additional costs.

“The bulk of this is non-state funded,” she said. “It is not as though we are taking the money we assume we are getting from the state and giving it to minimum wage workers.”

Early reaction from employees was mixed.

AFSCME Local 3299, which represents about 23,000 custodians, cooks, gardeners and other workers, called the plan a “marginal step forward.”

“UC recognizes that there is a problem at the university about poverty wages – the fact that people are working at the university and not making enough to live on,” union President Kathryn Lybarger said. “Doing this doesn’t actually solve the problem.”

She said the university should hire all of its lowest-level employees so that they can earn a retirement and health benefits, rather than outsourcing many of them to temporary contracts that create a “permanent underclass” of workers.

One UC Irvine professor expressed concerns on Twitter that he would have to cut the number of student researchers in his lab if his grants did not cover the pay raise.

Lawmakers are currently considering a bill that would boost California’s minimum hourly rate to $13 by 2017. It passed the state Senate last month and is now working its way through the Assembly.


By: Alexei Koseff

Via: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article28291927.html

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article28291927.html#storylink=cpy

Ruthie's Experience

Last week I joined some of the ladies at Time for Change Foundation to speak to criminal justice students at the University of Redlands. I had a great time sharing my experience with the students. Not only was I able to provide them with useful information, but I was inspired and learned new and useful information. I was motivated to keep trying, to not give up. Searching for a job after incarceration has been really hard, and doing so with a felony seems impossible. My felony is looked at and judged, which leads to me never getting a call back, but with this experience I am encouraged and want to someday help others with helping themselves; what I am doing now for myself. 

I participated in a panel where we discussed and learned more about AB 218 Law, Banning the Box on employment applications and how to be sure that any employers are in compliance with the law. It ensures that public employers provides a chance to hire on individuals that qualify for the position and eliminates discrimination due to their past mistakes.

We also discussed Prop 47, which reclassifies 6 petty crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. As a group, we talked about the barriers of finding employment as a felon, or just having a criminal background in general.

I am thankful to be a part of something so important and I cannot wait for the next opportunity to share with others what it is like for us. I am learning how to use my voice and it feels so empowering!

Ruthie Roys

February 23, 2015   

CSU plans to hire 600 to 700 new faculty by fall

The California State University plans to hire 600 to 700 full-time positions by this fall as both the CSU and UC systems struggle to hire more tenure-track faculty in light of recent budget cuts.

California State University San Bernardino College of Education

An allotment of $125 million from the state last year to the CSU system helped fund 470 new faculty positions. The proposed allocation for this year’s budget is $142.2 million each for the CSU and UC systems, although they are requesting an additional $95 million and $124.9 million, respectively. Steven Filling, chair of the CSU Academic Senate, stressed that with the net loss of 59 CSU faculty members last year, more funds are needed to support faculty positions.

“Ideally, we’d get new money for additional faculty and therefore better services for students. Then we wouldn’t have to turn away students who are qualified,” Filling said. “Increase in teachers, increase in classes offered.”

CSU students can expect to see new tenure-track professors in the classroom by fall. But the net hiring impact at the end of the academic year may only be about 250 with retirements and resignations factored in, according to C. Judson King, director of the Center for Studies in Higher Education. Additionally, temporary or part-time positions may be taken over by new tenure-track faculty.

Meanwhile, the UC system wants to use $21.8 million of the extra $124.9 million they are requesting to fund hiring new faculty, buying new equipment and enrolling 2,100 more students, according to UC spokesperson Dianne Klein.

Gov. Jerry Brown previously pushed UC and CSU schools to reduce costs themselves through online courses and flexible curriculum.

“Right now, the state legislature is in negotiations, so we’re hopeful,” Klein said. “(The $124.9 million) is not a wish list, per se. It’s our very best effort, and we’re looking under every rock.”

Caitlin Quinn, 2014-2015 ASUC external affairs vice president, said she hopes the UC system will follow the CSU system’s lead and acquire more funding to prevent departments like Gender and Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies from shrinking.

“I think it’s good to see a big influx of faculty for the students, and as UC students, we should be in solidarity with the CSU students and advocate for more faculty and funding here,” Quinn said.

The CSU has about 23,000 faculty, including tenure-track, full-time, part-time and temporary positions. According to Filling, the CSU system falls far below meeting the 75 percent tenure-track recommendation of a resolution passed by the state legislature in 2001.

“In the intervening years, we’ve taken more students and the classes get bigger,” Filling said. “When they do, we start to not do as much of the thing that makes that successful, which is develop relationships directly with students.”

via: http://www.dailycal.org/2014/06/03/csu-plans-hire-600-700-new-faculty-fall/

UC Berkeley students lobby in Sacramento for bill to tax oil to fund public higher education

A group of UC Berkeley students joined forces with supporters from various California colleges and universities Thursday morning to lobby for a state Senate bill that aims to reduce tuition at California public institutions of higher education.

About 20 UC Berkeley students were among the 70 supporters who went to Sacramento to bequest members of the Senate Education Committee to support  Senate Bill 1017, which would impose a tax on oil and gas extracted from California soil. The revenue from the tax would be funneled into an endowment — established by the bill — that would generate funds for California public higher education. The proposal ultimately aims to stabilize tuition and roll costs back to 2008 levels.

“We all teamed up and went into the meeting, where we pretty much lobbied,” said UC Berkeley junior Elias Saigali. “I think it was very effective.”

Those who attended the Senate hearing had the opportunity to vocalize through testimony either their support of or opposition to the bill. According to Saigali, about 60 people spoke in favor of the bill — including students and supporters from the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a grassroots organization that aims to empower ordinary citizens to take action in their communities.

“Our physical persistence showed that students really care,” Saigali said. “It’s a way for them to understand what we’re going through. It’s important to us.”

Also at the hearing, representatives from the Western States Petroleum Association enumerated their qualms. Particularly, they argued that the legislation would cost the oil industry about 10,000 jobs and would raise gas prices.

SB 1017, which was introduced two months ago by State Senator Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, has long been supported by a coalition of UC Berkeley students. The bill is a development of both Senate Bill 241 — a former iteration of SB 1017 that failed to pass in committee last year — and the California Modernization and Economic Development Act. Authored by UC Berkeley senior Harrison “Jack” Tibbetts, CMED is of similar sentiment to SB 1017 and, in fact, inspired the bill’s provision of an endowment fund.

In a February interview, Tibbetts said SB 1017 could generate upward of $5 billion for higher-education funding in California. He added that California is the only major oil-producing state that doesn’t impose a tax on extracted oil.

On Thursday, SB 1017 passed the preliminary vote in the Senate Education Committee. As a result of this, the state Senate Governance and Finance Committee will review the bill May 9.

“My hope is that if this does pass, it will inspire students to take legislation into their own hands,” Tibbetts said. “There is more to being reactionary. You can actually lead the discussion.”

 via: http://www.dailycal.org/2014/04/24/uc-berkeley-students-lobby-sacramento-bill-tax-oil-fund-public-higher-education/