The Highlander
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE
For the week of Tuesday, December 3, 2024
VOL. 73, ISSUE 10
OPINIONS
est. 1954
UCR students must support AFSCME Local 3299 members THE UC SHOULD ADDRESS AFSCME LOCAL 3299 WORKERS’ DEMANDS IMMEDIATELY.
By: The Editorial Board
JOSEPH RODARTE / THE HIGHLANDER
Op-ed: UCR Residential Education: taking the life out of residential life REFLECTING ON THE BENEFITS AND HIDDEN COSTS OF JOBS IN RESIDENTIAL EDUCATION.
By: Anonymous With housing, food and financial insecurity plaguing the university, a growing number of students are seeking part-time employment while they continue their education. The University of California Riverside’s (UCR) Department of Residential Education (ResEd), offers part-time positions as a solution to these issues, but at the hidden cost of students’ mental and physical well-being. For those unfamiliar with UCR’s Housing, ResEd oversees the experiential and educational aspects of on-campus living. This includes policy enforcement, event programming, incident response, community building and more. Entry-level positions with ResEd come in two main positions. The first position is Resident Advisors
(RAs), who focus on the needs of their assigned residents and conduct administrative tasks, including roommate agreements, check-ins and crisis management. Secondly, there are Program Advisors, who primarily design events and initiatives to serve those living on campus. Both of these positions compensate students with a living space in an assigned residential community, a meal plan and a biweekly stipend of $50. Though the job descriptions seem reasonable and the compensation appears to fulfill a student’s basic needs, ResEd student staff tend to find themselves overworked, underpaid and stuck in a vicious rehiring cycle with little job security or stability. ResEd preys on students experiencing housing, food
and financial insecurity, creating a dependency on the department with no assurance of re-hiring the following year. Student leadership with ResEd presents itself as a high-commitment but high-value employment opportunity due to the enticing incentive of free on-campus housing and meals. However, the steep physical and mental health costs of ResEd’s overwhelming job expectations greatly outweigh these benefits. For RAs, these easily overlooked expectations include “regularly scheduled duty shifts.” Duty involves 13 or 24-hour overnight shifts for weekdays, weekends and holidays respectively...
On Nov. 20 and Nov. 21, the University of California, Riverside’s (UCR) American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 (AFSCME Local 3299) joined other UC campuses and health care centers to protest UC’s “bad faith bargaining” and “unfair labor practices.” With nearly 40,000 UC workers protesting systemwide, including about 100 workers at UCR, President Michael Avant of AFSCME Local 3299 said in a statement that “UC has sought to drive us further apart” in the negotiation process “by failing to meet its most basic legal responsibilities to the dedicated professionals who clean its facilities, serve students food and treat its patients.” UC officials responded to the statement, saying that they “fundamentally disagree with AFSCME’s claims” and that “collaboration ceased in May when AFSCME stopped responding or even acknowledging the university’s proposals,” which includes a raise in wages to $25 per hour by 2025 and an increase in pay by an average of 26% over a five-year contract. AFSCME Local 3299 is the backbone of all UC campuses, particularly at UCR. Because of that, The Highlander Editorial Board supports AFSCME Local 3299 and calls on the UC to hear their workers’ immediate demands to secure a living wage and... ► SEE AFSCME LOCAL 3299 PAGE 7
► SEE RESIDENTIAL LIFE PAGE 8
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