Long-time caregiver gears up for a new career in automotive technology thanks to union/college partnership
by Andy Furillo
“I am a member of the UDW, since 2006. They support me very well, take care of me. Everybody in that office, we are brothers and sisters, and they told me they are offering free classes at the college if I wanted to study, and I said yes.”
Steve Chika, UDW Member and Automotive Technology Student
The perpetual wars of their homeland got to be too much for Steve Chika’s family, which in 1999 emigrated from Iraq to the United States—first to the harsh winters of Michigan, and finally to the sunny suburbs of San Diego.
Along the way, Chika’s father died, which left him as the prime caregiver for his elderly, diabetic mother, and for a brother disabled by multiple sclerosis. For the next 17 years, he cared for the family through the state’s In-Home Supportive Services program. Now, while maintaining his responsibility toward his mother and brother—and with a wife he married just this year— Chika is poised to take a great leap in life for himself.
As a member of United Domestic Workers of America (UDW), Chika learned through his union of a cooperative program between the California Community College system and UDW which encourages and assists union members pursuing vocational education.
The program is part of Vision 2030, a collaborative action plan aimed at increasing student success and closing equity gaps in education by improving access and affordability. The goal of the partnership, which was announced last year by CCC Chancellor Sonya Christian, is to boost the working poor by helping 70 percent of them obtain a professional certificate or postsecondary degree by the end of this decade. The UDW has 171,000 members in California, most of whom are immigrants, refugees and people of color.
“I am a member of the UDW, since 2006,” Chika said. “They support me very well, take care of me. Everybody in that office, we are brothers and sisters, and they told me they are offering free classes at the college if I wanted to study, and I said yes.”
This year, Chika completed an ESL grammar class at San Diego College of Continuing Education. This fall, he is set to begin a three-semester automotive technology series course at that college. In a year and a half, he hopes to come out of the program with a certificate that will unlock his future.
Once he completes his 930 hours of course work, Chika will be an expert in repairs, servicing, diagnostic analysis—everything required to make him eligible for national certification. The payoff: Certificated auto techs in California make an average of $28 and some of them as much as $44 an hour, according to Zip Recruiter.
Chika, who makes $18 an hour as a homecare worker, said he is interested in more than a higher hourly wage. He wants to start his own business.
“It is my big dream,” he said. “My wife is so excited.”
As a powerhouse of organized labor, the UDW of course fights to improve wages, benefits and working conditions for its members. But a major goal of the union in its partnership with the community colleges is to actually reduce its own membership. The hope is that once UDW members obtain college degrees or certification, they can go on to become teachers and accountants or other types of technicians and professionals.
Or, in the case of dreamers like Chika, maybe even open their own businesses.
To learn more about the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, the CCCs partnership with the UDW, and Vision 2030, visit www.cccco.edu/About-Us/Vision-2030. Information about UDW can be found at www.udw.org/our-union/.
