DC Rallies for California Workers

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
A California contract campaign came to DC Wednesday when nearly 100 green-clad AFSCME members and labor activists rallied for thousands of University of California (UC) workers. The crowd filled the sidewalks outside the UC Washington Center on Rhode Island Avenue to pressure school officials to end a ten-month contract fight with the workers. Activists chanted while a delegation of students, UC alumni and workers attempted to deliver a letter to the Center director urging him to talk with UC officials about the contract. The DC rally was part of a day of action Wednesday for workers that included dozens of rallies at UC campuses and medical centers across California. Though UC medical centers are highly profitable and CEO compensation continues to increase, workers’ are paid 25 percent less than their colleagues at other hospitals and community colleges, reports AFSCME. Workers are also demanding that UC “create a step-increase system for wages, as well as the [give workers the] right to bargain over health care and to have a voice in the pension system,” reports James Parks on the AFL-CIO Now Weblog. “Workers had planned a two-day strike to begin Wednesday, but postponed it and…return to the bargaining table last week.” Click here to read Parks’ full story.
- report/photo by Andy Richards