I was at the UC Santa Cruz Founders Day celebration as service workers and their supporters protested outside. Activists held up pictures of UC service workers and held vigil candles, and handed out fliers to attendants. I passed by them on my way into the Coconut Grove, a local meeting place where I had attending a job fair earlier in the year.
It was a special night: Narinder Singh Kapany, Dana Priest, and Patricia Zavella, all UC Santa Cruz graduates or professors, were all honored for their work. Dana Priest won two Pulitzer Prizes and I got a chance to talk to her a bit after the ceremonies. There is no doubt that all of the honorees deserved their awards, but one recipient had something to say to the crowd.
While the attendees were feating on a decadent pumpkin spice cake, Professor Patricia Zavella took to the podium. Her research focused on the health needs of immigrants, and she is working with governments to provide people across the Americas with health care. She raised her voice during her address, saying that she believed that service workers at the UC should receive living wages. She was not booed, but only about a third of the crowd, including myself, applauded.
Service workers all too often have to clean up after students, who vomit after getting drunk, who wreck up hallways and who leave the toilets, let's just say, in less desirable conditions. They have to use toxic cleaning materials such as bleech and "the pink" soap to clean bathrooms. Often times they are forced to rent an apartment that they share with five or more other service workers. This is the only way that they can afford the bills.
As a former UC student who has seen first hand what these service workers go through, I advocate a living wage. Though they had to clean up after students, they had friends in the dorms and many students greatly appreciate the work they do. It is time for the UC, which is working to make its campus environmentally sustainable, to make sure that its workers can sustain themselves.
I have a great deal of respect for the current Chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, George Blumenthal. He seems concerned that service workers are not being paid living wages, but in the end, the decision is not his to make. In the end, it will take student involvement and non-violent activism to make real change.