UC Davis custodial staff are overworked. We ask the administration to hire more staff members for campus buildings.

UC Davis has made two major budget cuts to custodial staff in recent years. Now, there are very few staff allocated  to clean campus buildings. King Hall (where this petition originated) is a large, three story building. UC Davis allocates only one permanent staff member to clean this entire building daily.  King Hall has independently hired an 'recharge service' staff member from a private fund. Still, the cleaning staff here say that their team is too small to clean the building. Their work suffers because there is simply too much to clean. 

This problem is not isolated to King Hall. UC Davis has limited the budget for custodial services across all departments on campus. There are not enough staff members to properly clean campus buildings. Staff members across campus are feeling overworked and exhausted. At the same time, faculty, staff, and students are asked to take up the slack for reduced services by cleaning their own offices and meeting areas. UC Davis can fix this problem by allocating funding to hire more custodial staff to clean each building. 

Our cleaning staff are paid $25 per hour. They cannot afford to live in Davis because they are not eligible for the housing subsidies UC Davis offers highly paid administrators and faculty. Our cleaning staff commute over one hour per day from more affordable cities. Our cleaning staff must pay for gas and associated car expenses. They must pay for parking. 

Safety concerns:

Now, each staff member has to cover more shifts for their coworkers in other buildings. Staff shifts end around 2 AM and UC Davis does not provide transportation between buildings. Staff members are more likely to walk late at night which is dangerous. 

We, the UC Davis community, ask Chief Financial Officer Lauren Bautista, Associate Vice Chancellor Clint Lord, and Custodial Director Clare Shinnerl to increase the budget for custodial staff across UC Davis.