Boycott Message From Lakesha Harrison
April 23, 2010
Dear Graduation Speaker,
First, I would like to thank you for your commitment to UC. As the President of AFSCME 3299, I write on behalf of 20,000 service and patient care workers at the University of California. We share your dedication to UC. However, we feel that UC executives are taking our University down the wrong path. For this reason, the service and patient care workers at UC have called for a speakers boycott. We ask for your support.
UC executives have chosen a path that forces low wage workers into poverty and forces students to pay more for less. UC’s service workers are being laid off, are having their hours cut, and in some cases, simply having their jobs privatized. In addition, UC executives have plans to severely cut back on workers’ retirement benefits.
Full time UC workers making as little as $12 per hour, or $24,000 annually are experiencing anywhere between 4% to 20% reductions in take home pay.
The state’s funding cuts to UC are undeniable, but UC executives’ misplaced priorities are shockingly apparent. According to executives, UC is saving $7 million through cuts to low wage workers, yet UC executives have received over $9 million in increases since the cuts were implemented. This means they are spending more on executives than what they are supposedly saving from cuts to low wage workers!
We know that graduation is a very special time for students and their families. We are asking that you stand with us by honoring the boycott. In 2008, service workers called for a speakers boycott to highlight the poverty wages that existed at UC. Notables such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and actor Danny Glover, along with countless other speakers, honored the boycott. These brave acts helped win an historic contract that began to move service workers out of poverty. Now we are asking that you join this legacy and help keep service workers out of poverty!
Sincerely,
Lakesha Harrison
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