CSUN University News Clippings

University of California chief warns unions not to fight furloughs

(August 21, 2009)

By Laurel Rosenhall

When University of California President Mark Yudof announced a massive furlough plan last month, the idea was that almost all UC employees would have their salaries reduced this year by taking some days off without pay.

But a third of UC’s 180,000 employees haven’t faced the furloughs yet. They’re represented by about a dozen labor unions that are fighting Yudof’s plan.

Speaking Thursday to the Sacramento Press Club, Yudof said UC’s unionized workers received 4 percent raises this year, while non-union employees are taking pay cuts ranging from 4 to 10 percent.

He said the university would lay off some workers if the labor unions don’t agree to the furlough.

“A lot more people will be losing their houses if they’re laid off, and that’s what I’m trying to avoid,” Yudof told a maintenance worker at the Press Club gathering who said his colleagues will lose their homes if they’re furloughed.

The union representing janitors, hospital technicians and lab workers says UC should solve its budget problem by borrowing, restructuring debt and cutting executive pay – rather than furloughing employees.

“We’re trying to keep what little we got,” said Arnold Meza, a UC Berkeley custodian, adding that the pay raise this year makes up for a pay cut in the past.

Yudof said the furlough is cutting the pay of UC’s top earners by 10 percent. Some of them are leaving the university, he said, because they are the “Tom Cruises of the academic world” and have no trouble finding more lucrative jobs.

Yudof criticized the news media for paying too much attention to the salaries of UC’s leaders.

He gave the example of Linda Katehi, who started this week as chancellor of UC Davis. Katehi is one of the nation’s leading electrical engineers, Yudof said, and has 16 patents. He chided reports comparing her $400,000 salary with the $315,000 her predecessor earned.

He also talked about the negative impact the state’s budget crisis is having on all of its public colleges and universities.

Funding cuts to higher education amount to an “anti-stimulus package,” Yudof said, and UC must figure out how to manage long-term reductions from the state.

Some options he said are under consideration: larger classes, increasing the number of community college transfer students at the expense of students who attend UC for all four years, raising student fees and creating an online university.

Publication: Sacramento Bee