UC Berkeley students and workers are organizing a noon protest on Thursday over looming layoffs.
Last month, Cal announced plans to eliminate about 500 staff positions during the next two years.
The university says it's currently about $150 million dollars over budget -- those cuts do not affect teachers or faculty.
But protesters say one person getting the axe is a clerical worker who's been with the school for 30 years.
“The execs are getting paid more and more every year while staff aren’t getting enough to live,´” said Joseph Meyer, aCal Human Resources employee. “98 percent of clerical staff don’t make enough to live based off of one parent, one child.”
School spokesperson Dan Mogoluf said there could be cuts to the executives – the school is looking at restructuring from top to bottom. The only group that will not be touched is faculty, so there will be no reduction in number of professors.
He also said that Cal went from 69 executives in 2002 to 67 last year, but increased its total pay from $10 million to $15 million, largely because of inflation in those 13 years.
As for the final picture, Mogulof is optimistic most of the 500 slashed staff positions will come through attrition, turnover. The final data on layoffs is set to come out in June. So far, the campus has already begun the process of laying off roughly 60 employees.
