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The singers in the Kool Breeze band at UC Berkeley’s Staff Appreciation Day Wednesday at the Campanile sang about temperatures rising, and certainly some of the university’s clerical staff are hot under the collar. 

While the university provided tables of soft drinks, ice cream bars, hot dogs and watermelon for employees, union members offered their side of the story, calling the event Staff Depreciation Day. 

The 18,000-member Coalition of University Employees (CUE) currently is in contract negotiations with the nine-campus University of California system, and union members protested the wage increase they’ve been offered with printed T-shirts a hunger strike. 

The university invited CUE to the event and union locals filled tables with informational literature and discussed their goals with employees who stopped by to talk to them. 

Brad Hayward, spokesman for the UC in Oakland, said the system offered to provide CUE with the same increase as it provided in the state budget for other UC employees: a 2 percent cost of living adjustment plus a 1.5 percent pool for merit increases. 

According to Claudette Begin, president of the local chapter of CUE, the wages for clerical workers at Cal are 21 percent below market rates. She says she lives in Union City because she can’t afford to live in Berkeley. 

Wearing a blue T-shirt that asked, “Fridays, I work for free. Why?” Begin said top level administrators received raises of up to 30 percent last October, a sticking point with CUE leadership, 

“We have seen job descriptions increase and salaries decrease,” said Begin. 

Nick Slater, CUE chief steward, said the increase the administrators received reflected the university’s understanding “that you have to pay top rates to get top people. We accept that rationale, but it applies across the board.” 

The union seeks a 6 percent retroactive increase from 1999 to 2000 and 5 percent from 2000 to 2001. 

In answer to the Staff Appreciation Day that brought out a large number of employees and others to eat and drink for two hours on a sweltering afternoon, some CUE members embarked on hunger strikes. 

“I’ve been here for 18 years and we can’t live on what we make,” said Jane Fehlberg, an administrative assistant who’s going on a hunger strike “for as long as I have to.” 

She said the idea of holding hunger strikes was “overwhelmingly” accepted among membership, some of whom plan to fast in 24- and 48-hour stints. 

Fernando Brito, a library employee, said he’s going to take part in the hunger strike, because “it’s one thing I can do to let them know that we’ll take action.” 

“We live in one of the most expensive areas of the country, unemployment is very low, and our UC job offerings attract very few, if any, qualified applicants,” Brito said. 

Fehlberg also said the clerical shortage has reached “crisis” proportions. 

John Kelly, president of Local 1 of the University Professional and Technical Employees, CWA, said his department has had difficulties hiring qualified technical help. 

He said he just hired a senior electronics technician, but it took him six months to find someone for that job. He said the new hire builds computer networks and troubleshoots and possesses high qualifications. 

She took a cut in pay of about 30 to 40 percent to come to Cal, he said. She has no dependents and Kelly said she views the position as a terrific learning opportunity, and of course, there are medical benefits and free classes. 

When asked about the mystique and ambience of working in the groves of the academy, he responded that if the school were to run a monastery and call it “the order of the University of Berkeley, we have nothing to discuss.” 

“But this is a real world institution, we have to pay rent and buy groceries,” Kelly said. 

The union also works on the legislative front, because the university’s argument, he said, is that it can only give out what it receives from Sacramento. 

Hayward said the university offered to CUE to provide this year’s wage increase to clerical employees while contract negotiations continue. 

He said this is unusual because the wage increase is usually part of the entire contract agreement. 

“We offered to go ahead and provide wage increases consistent with funding we received from the state and the union declined and held out for more money,” he said. 

He said the university system management has been supporting efforts in the legislature to provide more money in next year’s state budget for UC staff salaries. 

“There are a number of challenges we face. The strength of the overall economy makes it hard to stay competitive in terms of compensation,” Hayward said. 

Budget cuts in the early 1990s put the system at a disadvantage because the schools went for three years without a cost of living raise, he said. “It takes a significant amount of money to make even minor improvements in wages,” he said.