UC UAW Labor Community Solidarity Rally: COLA & Housing For All

Jackson Lewis Union Busting Lawyer Now Running UC Labor Relations/Demo Appointed UC Regents Are Property Speculators And Gentrifiers &
Dec 3 UCB Sproul Plaza Rally

UCB Sproul Plaza Rally Saturday Dec 3 12 Noon’

Democratic Appointed UC Regents Driving Housing Gentrification & Housing Crisis
The high cost of housing is a UC-created crisis

It may surprise you to learn that the UC is the largest landlord in California, controlling nearly 150,000 beds in university housing. UC also manages $5 billion dollarsin real estate investments, including properties owned directly and rented out for profit in UC communities. As a dominant player in California real estate, it is no surprise that UC has a housing policy that is more like that of a private landlord than a public university.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/our_sections/forum/the-high-cost-of-housing-is-a-a-uc-created-crisis/article_76149e18-701e-11ed-bad3-337f34ad12d1.html

By Matthew Tauzer | Special to The Examiner Nov 29, 2022
Aerial view of the center of UC Berkeley. The University of California is the largest landlord in California, controlling nearly 150,000 beds in university housing, but many students cannot afford rooms, especially in expensive markets like Berkeley.
UC Berkeley
We are now entering our third week of the largest strike in the nation — a strike that has all but shuttered UC’s 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Each of the 30,000-plus workers who are walking picket lines has their own story as to what brought them to this place. But overall, issues of equity, decent compensation and housing affordability have animated the effort.
As a result of the strike, post-docs and academic researchers have already reached tentative agreements on key concerns, showing that the UC can afford to pay its workers fairly. The UC must now do the same for the remaining 36,000 workers on strike, who are still waiting for a serious proposal on issues like wages.
As a PhD candidate working in UC Berkeley’s economics department, I have paid specific attention to the university’s arguments regarding economics and housing. And I was disappointed, but not surprised, to hear UC Labor Relations director Letitia Silas say that raising wages for academic workers could have "unintended consequences" like "subsidizing private landlords and further exacerbating rental costs for other Californians."
Inside California’s quiet housing policy revolution

How the state blew up its zoning codes and embraced new development
While no one institution is responsible for our state’s housing woes, the acute housing crisis near UC campuses is more of UC’s making than not. The claims made by Ms. Silas suggest a deliberate attempt to evade responsibility for UC’s failed housing policy.
It’s a secret to nobody that UC has failed to build enough housing to accommodate its surging enrollment. The shortage of housing — a long time coming — has created a captive market of vulnerable students and workers who are forced to live in crowded and unaffordable apartments near UC campuses. While UC denies any responsibility for housing practices off campus, its inaction has allowed private landlords to exploit this captive market by inflating rents far beyond campus limits.
UC boasts about its plan to build more housing. However, under current projections, the deficit of UC housing will increase to approximately 314,000 units by the end of the decade, according to UAW research. UC is no innocent bystander. Its actions precipitated this crisis and are capable of reversing it. Instead, UC has prioritized wasteful vanity projects, including spending over $1 billion on the most expensive college stadium in the country.
When it comes to institutional or corporate landlords, Blackstone and Invitation Homes are the first names that come to mind. It may surprise you to learn that the UC is the largest landlord in California, controlling nearly 150,000 beds in university housing. UC also manages $5 billion dollarsin real estate investments, including properties owned directly and rented out for profit in UC communities. As a dominant player in California real estate, it is no surprise that UC has a housing policy that is more like that of a private landlord than a public university.
In July, the UC Regents were caught increasing rents by up to 60% after flipping a 100-plus unit apartment building less than two miles from UC Santa Cruz. The building was purchased through a shell company called Regency Properties Broadway, a strategy used by large landlords like the UC to conceal their identities and evade liability. Tenants had to figure out on their own that this shell company was registered to the same address as the Oakland headquarters of the UC Regents.
While professing sympathy regarding the housing crisis, UC cleverly profited by making investments in real estate near its campuses. This investment strategy has proven so lucrative that UC’s long-term goal is to increase its real estate positions by nearly 50%. The UC Regents have even proposed establishing their own property management company. One of its objectives? Managing for-profit housing adjacent to its own campuses. According to notes from a UC Regents meeting, UC is always "looking for opportunities to investing or near UC campuses."
UC has the power to set affordable rents for its students and workers who do reside in UC housing. Instead, UC housing prices are close to and often exceed local rents. In the recently built Panoramic Berkeley, a room in a three-bedroom apartment costs $1,685. Compare that to the median rent of $1,532 in the area. This amounts to 87% of the pre-tax wages that UC pays its own graduate instructors.
Lower rents would not only benefit those who live in UC housing, but also those who live off-campus. The more that UC provides affordable on-campus housing, the less power landlords will have to increase rents or worsen housing conditions before tenants seek better options.
UC needs workers, and its workers need affordable housing near campus. That’s why we are askingUC to adjust our wages to reflect the reality of living in some of the world’s most expensive areas. Ms. Silas’s performative powerlessness rings hollow when just two months ago UC bragged about its $152.3 billion investment portfolio.
Will UC embrace the progressive vision it advertises, or is it destined to perpetuate the exclusionary and unaffordable university we know too well?

UC Labor Relations director Letitia Silas
https://profilemagazine.com/2020/letitia-silas/
Letitia F. Silas, Esq.
https://thedailyrecord.com/leading-women/letitia-f-silas-esq/

Attorney
Jackson Lewis PC
Letitia F. Silas, Esq., is an associate labor law attorney at Jackson Lewis PC. Prior to joining her firm, Silas prosecuted unfair labor practices in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. on behalf of the General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board. Her professional experience includes work for the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts legislature, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Silas is also the author of an article on equal employment opportunity and inclusion, which is published in the Widener Journal of Law, Economics, and Race. She is a member of the United Way Women’s Leadership Council for Central Maryland, on the Lawyers’ Campaign committee for CollegeBound Foundation, a volunteer for Dress for Success Baltimore, and an executive board member for Women in Transition Inc., a Baltimore-based non-profit providing life and job skills to at-risk young women.
“For me, community service is a lifestyle,” she said.

How Letitia Silas Makes Way for Her Vision
JANUARY 13, 2020
Attorney Letitia Silas shares how faith, trust, and hard work results in a positive personal brand and career success

BY ZAYVELLE WILLIAMSON
The life and career journey for Letitia Silas has been nothing short of extraordinary. After college, the native Californian pursued her dreams and aspirations on the East Coast without knowing a single individual and with only a little savings in the bank. However, she had ambition, drive, and a willingness to succeed no matter what.

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Letitia Silas, Fisher Phillips
Photo: Roy Cox Studio
Silas had relocated to New York to serve as a constituent liaison intern in the office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. “While Hillary’s office was impressed with my résumé, they did not offer me the internship until I showed up in New York ready, willing, and able to volunteer (unpaid),” she says. “So, I went to New York without a bird in hand first—just hope and a wiliness to do whatever it takes.”

After interning with Clinton, Silas returned to California but was restless after being inspired by great experiences and committed professionals in New York. Motivated by the 2004 presidential election and drawn to John Kerry’s inspiring story of courage, she packed her bags and drove to Boston.

Once again, Silas didn’t know anyone there, she didn’t have a job lined up, and she didn’t know anyone who actually worked on the campaign. “I had a lot of faith,” Silas says with a laugh. “I was applying for temporary jobs, staying at a hotel, and just hanging out at the Massachusetts State House so that I could be a part of that energy. I was going to show up there every day in my suit and with my résumé until something happened.”

Before too long, she became acquainted with a professional who “walked me right over to the John Kerry campaign headquarters and told them to give me a job.” “Everybody ran up to me and said, ‘You have to meet Ayanna!’ Well, it turns out they were talking about Ayanna Pressley.”

The campaign staffers embraced Silas and assigned her to the phones. “It was at least several weeks before I actually met Ayanna,” Silas says. “She came up to me one afternoon as I was doing calls. She was amazing.” Silas soon found a mentor in Pressley, who was then Kerry’s constituency director.

Silas recalls that Pressley took her under her wing, even arranging for Silas to meet several Massachusetts elected officials. And to Silas, it is that kind of relationship that made her work with the Kerry campaign so valuable and has also inspired Silas to mentor young women. “Ayanna was impactful and made a difference in my experience on the campaign,” Silas recalls.

The campaign exposed Silas to the political and social circles in Boston, and eventually she landed a paid, full-time job as a legislative aide to a Massachusetts state representative. She was finally able to secure better living and had really landed her foot securely in the political door.

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Photo: Roy Cox Studio
Silas created enduring connections and relationships, and her experiences developed her positive brand, built her résumé, and made her more competitive when it came to applying to law school, securing scholarships and legal internships, and eventually attorney positions.

“Basically, I worked my tail off,” Silas says with a laugh. “I was relentless in my studies, I volunteered while in law school, and I gave up one of my summers to work on a paper with a professor, which is how I was able to publish a law journal article before graduation.”

During her studies, Silas was encouraged to apply for a judicial internship with the federal district court. “At the end of the interview, I asked whether I had the job. And she said, ‘Oh yes, you had the job before you walked in the door. I just wanted to meet you in person,’” Silas recalls.

Since earning her degree, Silas has kept up her personal brand and momentum. Prior to graduation, she accepted a dream job as a labor law attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. After several years with the NLRB, she was recruited by a large law firm. While with the firm, Silas made a positive impression on one of her clients, Howard University, and was soon offered a position as in-house labor counsel for the university and its hospital.

Outside of legal work, Silas trains Howard University Law School and Business School students in personal branding and professional dress in addition to mentoring young women. Silas also started her own podcast, Beauty Not Boundaries, which highlights female diversity and topics relevant to today’s women.

According to Silas, anyone can find open doors. “But it requires showing up. It requires hard work. It requires dedication and consistency. It requires looking the part and playing the part. And it requires having a reputation and brand that people trust, rely on, and are willing to invest in,” Silas says. “When others believe in you and your vision, they want you to succeed. And, when they want you to succeed, they will make a way for you and your vision.”