University of California, Santa Cruz students, children, faculty, and Teamsters rallied on Monday, March 11 protesting the recent plan to privatize childcare at UCSC potentially causing skyrocketing costs and massive job loss.
“As one of the largest employers in Santa Cruz area, the University of California should uplift the community by maintaining good jobs and quality care for our children,” said Jason Rabinowitz, Secretary-Treasurer, Teamsters Local 2010. “Privatizing good jobs moves in the wrong direction, benefitting greedy corporations at the expense of kids and workers.”
As part of the new Student Housing West project, the administration intends to shut down the current university-run Early Education Services Preschool and Childcare and replace it with a new center run by a private, for-profit childcare provider, Bright Horizons.
Transitioning to Bright Horizons will hurt the children, workers, faculty and students of UCSC. Currently, at the university-run childcare center, costs range from $100 to $875 a month for services. At the new center, Bright Horizons will determine costs of childcare in accordance with market rates, which are $2000 to $3000 a month in Santa Cruz County making it inaccessible by the wider UCSC community.
“It’s disheartening that teachers who have spent their whole lives working with children may have to apply to entry -level positions in another department on campus,” said Paulette Carney, Enrollment Coordinator, UCSC Early Educational Services.
The broader UCSC community will also feel the impact of the deal as over 60 good paying jobs, including 15 teacher positions, are in danger of being lost.
Click here to sign the petition in support of the UCSC community. Stand with us as we continue the fight the privatization of the Early Education Services at UCSC.