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Clerical workers at the University of California say the chairs, desks and computers they are forced to sit at all day are crippling them. Their union, which began contract negotiations with the university at its Oakland headquarters on Monday, is seeking a complete overhaul of university policies on ergonomics. 

Although a 14 percent wage increase over three years is the biggest single issue for the 18,000-strong Coalition of University Employees, the union is also targeting what it says is an outdated and wholly inadequate program for ensuring safe clerical work areas. 

CUE wants a certified ergonomic specialist to test every clerical worker’s computer workstation in the University of California system within 30 days of being hired or of the new contract going into effect. 

Repetitive motion injuries are a growing problem across the University of California system and at UC Berkeley in particular, according to Chloe Osmer, a volunteer organizer for CUE. 

“There is so much outdated furniture,” Osmer said. “Old desks are not set up for eight-hour computer days. 

“It’s a problem that the UC is going to have to deal with soon or Workers’ Compensation claims are going to skyrocket.” 

Workers’ Compensation claims for repetitive motion injuries have been steadily rising at Berkeley over the last three years, according to Steve Lustig, assistant vice chancellor of Health and Counseling Services. 

Two years ago, 211 injury claims were processed. That figure rose to 274 in the last fiscal year, which ended in June. Some of them were lifting injuries, but most were computer related, he said. 

Repetitive motion injuries are also growing as a percentage of total injuries, up from 26 percent two years ago to 29 percent today. 

The numbers may be climbing, but the average cost of treating each injury seems to be dropping. The figures could be misleading because they do not reflect the full cost of treatment, Lustig said. 

“You don’t really know the full cost of a claim until two or three years down the road.” 

Claudette Begin, a member of CUE’s governing board, said the university needs to take a broader look at working conditions and workstations and help prevent injuries. 

“The university is totally underestimating or overlooking this problem,” she said. “A number of clerical workers have become injured and are no longer able to work. Sometimes it is for short periods. Sometimes they are never able to do work on a computer again. What opportunities are there for working in an office if you can’t use a computer?” 

Hillary FitzGerald-Nicholson, 46, said she filed a workers compensation claim last year, after transferring to the UC Berkeley Office of the Registrar and being ordered by her supervisor to “workstation hop” and train other employees on how to use the computer system. 

“Because I had carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms before, I told them it was something I couldn’t do,” she said. “But they didn’t care.” 

FitzGerald-Nicholson, a member of the CUE negotiating team, said her reports of neck aches and shooting pain in her arms were not taken seriously by her supervisors. 

“Management just treats you like a criminal, like you’re a liar,” she said. “They just think you are playing a game and because they can’t see your injury, they question it.” 

Her claim was approved within three months, she said. She was off work for a month and received regular medical treatment afterwards. 

Paul Schwartz, a university spokesman, declined to comment on the rising number of reported injuries, saying only that the health and welfare of all UC employees is a “top priority” for the university. 

“We take the matter of safe working conditions extremely seriously,” he said. 

On the Berkeley campus, the entire ergonomics program is a two-person operation. 

“I would need a huge staff to test every workstation at Berkeley,” said Barbara Pottgen, ergonomics program manager for the campus. 

“That’s a huge job. We train department-based evaluators to go and do preventative evaluation in their departments. 

“What we have really tried to do is develop a program that works with the resources that we have.” 

Two hundred department evaluators have been trained in the last two years, Pottgen said. 

But the evaluators do not have enough training, and the self-enforcement system gives departments too much power over their employees, according to CUE’s Osmer. 

“It’s being done very haphazardly,” said Osmer. “Some departments are good and some aren’t. We want to get it done throughout the campuses.” 

Pottgen said departments have the responsibility for enforcing evaluations, which might have caused some “unevenness” across campus. 

CUE has also proposed a mandated 10-minute break every hour for workers that spend more than 60 percent of their time at computers. The union wants to establish a joint-committee with the university to recommend and review ergonomic policy as well. 

Schwartz declined comment on any of the unions’ specific proposals. 

“We believe that bargaining should take place at the bargaining table and not in the arena of public opinion,” he said. 

The current contract was set to expire at the end of the month, but CUE’s chief negotiator said the union would ask for the deadline to be extended until the end of October.