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The Regents of the University of California
 

Budget hits workers hard

BY KENT WONG

In his 2004-05 budget proposal for California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has singled out for elimination two programs within the University of California: the Institute for Labor and Employment (ILE) and outreach programs to increase minority admissions.

With UC scheduled to receive $2.9 billion in state funds for the upcoming fiscal year, the planned elimination of these two programs unfairly targets resources vital to workers and communities of color. A case in point is the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, a downtown facility that gets about 75% of its budget from the ILE for critical research on immigrant workers, living wage ordinances, family leave policies, women in the workplace, economic inequality and labor in the global economy. The center recently launched a minor in labor and workplace studies, providing UCLA students with an opportunity to learn about the world of work, both in the classroom and through dynamic internships. Now this hub of learning skills and development for workers throughout Los Angeles is in danger of disappearing.

Created in 2000 by an act of the California Legislature to address the university’s deficit in labor studies, the institute is the only statewide UC program that specifically addresses the research and education concerns of California’s workforce. In just a little over three years, the ILE has gained national prominence as an outstanding program devoted to research and teaching. It is a model of the university’s service mission. The institute’s annual funding of $6 million has already been slashed to $4 million because of budgetary constraints.

UC is one of the nation’s finest publicly funded institutions. For decades, working people’s tax dollars have supported its management, agriculture and engineering schools. However, the university’s re-sources have primarily served the interests of the business community rather than those of workers. In partnership with the corporate sector, these schools provide ex-cellent research and educational facilities. Yet the research and educational needs of workers have been grossly underrepresented and underfunded.

Gov. Schwarzenegger appears to be receiving very poor guidance from his conservative advisers and supporters. Clearly, they are using the budget crisis as a pretext to destroy labor studies at UC. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Labor Center is being selectively targeted because it is one of the few programs that allow unions and workers to connect with the university. To terminate such a facility is nothing less than an attack on academic freedom.

The ILE has served the UC mission well by creatively balancing research, teaching and service, not to mention developing new interests and collaborations among faculty and students engaged in labor and workplace studies. It is therefore imperative that policy makers, researchers, scholars and students continue to have an institute that provides crucial knowledge about California’s rapidly changing workplace and workforce.

Wong is director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education.