Oct
17
2007
Knowing the Nameless Faces
by Matt Toyama
posted in Features |
Everyday, we encounter numerous workers—invisible faces. Have you ever cared to think about their lives? You know… the people that serve your food, pick up your trash, and answer your phone calls. The people that clean up your shit in the toilets and make sure the grass is short enough for you to sunbathe on, and bike paths smooth enough for you to ride on. Many of them are employed by the University of California at Santa Barbara. They do not constitute any sole racial, sexual or socio-economic identity. In the case of UCSB, they are the custodians, groundskeepers, laborers, clerics and all other low-income employees.
Let me introduce you to Bob Pinto, a 52-year old laborer who has worked on campus for eight years. Of his experience, Pinto says, “Sometimes it feels like the students and the workers are two separate groups. I think most of the time the students see workers just as workers and not human beings and the workers see the students just as students, not human beings. But we are all human, and it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Cherry Martinez, a member of the club “Mujer”, has worked alongside many university employees in the past. She feels that the workers are not paid enough relative to the difficulty of their labor. Three years ago a number of UCSB employees went on strike because of the university’s stagnant raise policy. The university finally obliged to their wage increase, but not without taking the workers’ right to strike; a worker’s only political weapon.
Sonia Salazar, another third year at the university, comments likewise, “I witnessed not only students refraining from helping campus workers, but actually degrading them with racial comments…no respect. I think we need to be aware of our laborers existence, the hardships they face, and build positive day-to-day relationships with them.”
Allow me to introduce you to another face; Reyes Cardenas, a university custodian. Cardenas has been employed by UCSB since he was 21 years old—23 years working for you. When asked the hardest part of his job, he answered, “I feel uncomfortable sometimes around students because I don’t want to have to ask them to leave the classroom or bathroom if I need to clean…it would help if I had met and talked with any [students] before.”
“It’s nice when people actually acknowledge me and say hello,” adds Mr. Pinto.
Mr. Julian Posadas, local Goleta organizer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (otherwise known as the AFSCME Union), has worked for twelve years at UCSC. There, he has successfully fostered a working relationship between students and campus workers. Posadas finds importance in getting students and workers in the same room to make acquaintances, interact, and talk. Both groups share concern for many similar issues including better wages for on-campus jobs, stoppage of tuition and fee raises, pension protections, and a greater development of cultural studies.
Two years ago, the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) was created at UCSB. The group has since been remiss in activity, but is working on their revival. Although they currently have no official name, the group is still working to establish a working relationship between students and university workers. This group is beginning to meet in the El Centro building almost every Wednesday night at 7:30 pm. There is never a better time than the present to meet someone new or to begin doing something with any privilege that you have been blessed with. It has been said that to whom much has been given, much will therefore be expected.
As Mr. Pinto reiterates, “Students have always been a worker’s best ally. We [workers] are often very tired and not used to standing up for ourselves. Students are intelligent, good at speaking for themselves, and they have big numbers.”
If the university is educating students to be independent thinkers, then students are destined to be world leaders. Students should lead and help those whose minds remain chained by their social, racial or hereditary prejudices; to build numbers for and create awareness about the rights of those who serve us. This is our responsibility as students.
Mr. Posadas believes, “If we are able to mobilize 50 people for the campus laborers cause, or for any good, righteous cause, and we lose…did we really lose? No.”
History continues to be written every second we live. Every choice we make holds the power to show the sun something it has never seen before. Every action may be the one that saves history from looking exactly as it always has. If students take up arms for the hands that serve them, the gap of misunderstanding one’s fellow man is closed even more. For when humanity finally recognizes the rest of itself, surely to evil we shall never lose again.