End Poverty at UC

This week, the lowest-paid workers at the University of California’s (UC’s) 10 campuses and five medical centers are on strike for wages that will lift them and their families out of poverty.

UC service workers’ wages are so low many of them can’t meet their families’ basic needs without working two jobs. In fact, as many as 96 percent can qualify for some public assistance, including food stamps, child care and public housing subsidies. You can watch a video about these workers’ struggles here.

Tell UC’s president, chancellors and medical center CEOs that as a stakeholder in the UC system, you want UC workers to be treated fairly and with respect.

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

(Edit Letter Below)

I support the 8,500 University of California (UC) service workers who are struggling for decent wages. Many of these workers and their families live in poverty, trying to make ends meet on as little as $10 an hour. It doesn't have to be this way. California community colleges and hospitals pay family-sustaining wages that average 25 percent more than those at UC.

UC custodian Leonor Orozco is just one example. She earns $24,000 after five years of service, lives with her four children in a studio apartment and worries about having to choose between feeding her children and taking them to the doctor.

As many as 96 percent of UC service workers can qualify for some form of public assistance, including food stamps, child care and public housing subsidies. That's just not right. Parents who work in our state's great university system should not have to rely on food stamps to put food on their tables.

I want UC's campuses and medical centers to be a place where employees are treated fairly and are able to live as hard-working families should. As a stakeholder in the UC system, I urge you to make family-sustaining wages, rather than poverty wages, a reality for all UC workers. If California community colleges and other hospitals do it, so can UC.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

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