Safeguarding Our Work From Contracting Out

Each year, we fight to protect our members’ work. Current contracting practices often hand over vital work performed by our members to for-profit businesses. Unfortunately, many of the transparency and accountability standards that apply when public workers deliver services do not apply to private companies. While government is ultimately responsible for delivering public services, private contractors are accountable to their shareholders and are not required to disclose important decision making processes to the public. While not all for-profit companies providing public services are bad actors, under the false pretense of maximizing efficiency, some often undercut industry pay standards and deliver substandard services at a higher cost to taxpayers without performing better work. This year, AFSCME strongly advocated for legislation to protect our UC service workers from these harmful practices.

Over the past three years, AFSCME Local 3299 has worked to highlight abuses of contracting practices by the University of California (UC) system through a series of bills. This year’s effort reflected a more targeted approach to addressing significant long-term contracting abuses within the UC system using findings from a recently released report from California State Auditor Elaine Howle. Since the release of these findings, the State Auditor’s office actively advocated on the importance of this year’s UC 3299 sponsored legislation to the Brown Administration.

The report states clearly that “The University of California (university) has not fully followed its policies for justifying its decisions to displace university employees.” For example, campuses simply avoided hiring career employees and neglected the competitive bidding process by repeatedly amending contracts. The State Auditor made various recommendations to the Legislature and the UC Office of the President to address these pressing issues impacting full-time UC employees. Last year, Governor Brown had stated in his veto message of SB 959 (Lara, 2016) -- a similar bill intended to protect our UC workers from contracting out -- that he would not consider taking action on this issue until the State Auditor provided evidence and made policy recommendations. In response, Senator Ricardo Lara worked diligently to incorporate the audit’s findings to advocate on the urgency for SB 574’s implementation.  

SB 574 (Lara) would have required the University of California, to hold contract labor firms accountable around compensation and treatment of workers. Contingent or contracted work has been especially evident at the University of California where, despite dramatic growth in both student enrollment and facilities, the number of directly employed service workers has actually declined. Reports have indicated that UC contracted workers are exploited through lower wages and various labor abuses. AFSCME members directly employed by the UC risk losing their jobs at the expense of this mistreated workforce. SB 574 would have amended the state’s public contracting law to which UC must adhere, disqualifying contractors that are under investigation for or have been found guilty of labor abuses. Additionally, this bill would have barred the UC from accepting contract bids that undercut the wages and benefits of existing university employees.

Ultimately, this bill would have helped to slow the troubling and growing trend of abuse of contracted out workers by requiring the UC to hold contract labor firms accountable for the compensation and treatment of workers. “SB 574 was just the fair thing to do,” said Agnes Suarez, a UCSF Hospital Unit Service Clerk and AFSCME 3299 member. “People working side by side should get equal treatment and equal pay.”

As the third-largest employer in the state, the UC has the power to either uplift or erode labor markets and living standards, to either strengthen communities of immigrants and people of color, or to take advantage of these communities and deny them social mobility or decent working conditions. In light of the State Auditor’s compelling findings, SB 574 is an important step for establishing stronger worker protections for our members at the UC.  Unfortunately, the Governor vetoed SB 574. However, the Governor’s veto message did recognize that SB 574 is “a well-intentioned bill,” that the UC has more work to do to contain costs, and that “other actions to improve UC’s policies” should be considered in the state budget process.