UC faculty say proposed cuts unfair, show favoritism [The Public Press]

This story was originally filed on August 2nd, just a few days after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the $84.5 billion spending plan for California's 2009-2010 fiscal year. The budget removed a $24 billion deficit mostly by cutting funding to education, health and human services, prisons, and other state services. This story tells how the budget cuts are affecting the staff and programs of the state's higher education system. I'm reposting the article below, but you can see the original post on The Public Press website.

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Tips for Finding Good Fares

I was the guest "travel expert" on the last episode of ADOBO NATION, the weekly magazine talk program airing Sundays at 6:40pm on The Filipino Channel (TFC). In the ATM: Anong Tanong Mo segment, I talked with host Michi Valeriano about holiday travel and gave a few tips and tricks for finding good airfare deals. For those of you who missed the show or are interested in more details, I thought that I would repeat the points that I made and offer up some more advice that I didn't have time to mention on the show.

Tip 1: Look and book early

In general, you want to book your airline tickets at least 3 weeks in advance. Topaz International – a travel industry auditor - released a study in May that said you can save about 20% for international destinations and up to 50% for domestic trips if you purchase your tickets 21 days or more before the day of your flight.

For travel during the Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday seasons, you want to start looking for deals even earlier, like beginning around August or September. If you see a good price a few months before your trip then you should go ahead and book it if you can afford to, because the really great deals don't last very long before selling out.

It's also helpful to know that many airlines recalibrate their prices on Tuesday or Wednesday, sometimes in response to changes made by their competitors, so if you research fares on those days you are more likely to see "fresh" deals. If you make a habit of checking the price of an itinerary every day, you will be less likely to miss out on a great price.

Tip 2: Be flexible

When choosing dates for your flights, it generally helps if you aren't tied down to specific travel days. If you can, try to fly on a Tuesday or Wednesday -- prices will be better on those days since most people fly on Fridays, Sundays and Mondays. You will also get a better deal if your trip includes a Saturday night stay. It helps to think of the days that a business traveler would want to fly to be at work during the week and at home during the weekend -- and then do the opposite!

It also helps if you are in a big metropolitan area with multiple airports and you don't mind which airport you fly out of. You should look at flights from all airports within a convenient driving distance from your home. For example, if you live in San Francisco, you should look at flights out of the airports in Oakland and San Jose in addition to ones leaving out of San Francisco.

Holiday travel requires a different kind of flexibility. For Thanksgiving, most people tend to fly out on Wednesday and come back Sunday or Monday, so try to avoid those days if you can. If you plan on spending a few weeks away for Christmas, try booking a flight out for the first or second week in December since prices will go up the closer the flight day is to the 25th. Another option is to fly on the actual holiday itself -- my husband and I have flown on Christmas morning for the last few years and we see better prices on that day than the day before (Christmas Eve).

Tip 3: Research the web

There are lots of travel search engines on the internet -- it's hard to know which one to use! Some respected websites are Kayak, Mobissimo and Bing. These are not booking sites but aggregators that pull prices from multiple airlines and travel providers’ databases, let you easily sort the information so you can find the exact flight that you want, and then send you directly to the source to complete your purchase.. Kayak and Bing also allow you to run the same search through multiple sites like Travelocity, Expedia, Hotwire and Priceline all at once – these will pop up in different windows, so you can easily do a direct comparison.

Kayak has been our favorite flight search website for the last few years, but I recommend that you try each of them to see which one you are most comfortable using and which one is easiest for you to find the best prices.

Each of the websites have additional tools that can make it easier to find good deals. For example, Kayak has a handy chart that tells you the special fees for each airline. You can automatically add baggage fees to the list of prices if you know how many bags you are checking in for your flight. Kayak also has a special "weekend" search that quickly shows you the best fares over every weekend in a specific month. The website also has "Fare Charts" that show you in a graph how the price has changed for a specific itinerary over the last 90 days.

Bing (Microsoft's travel website, which bought and integrated Farecast.com) also has fare history and takes it to the next level by predicting if the current price is going to go up or down or stay the same, and advising you if you should "buy now" or hold off for a better deal.

Priceline still has a "name your own price" feature that may provide even better discounts but may involve multiple layovers and early/late flight times.

Even if you find a good deal through one of these aggregator sites, you should still check directly on the website of the airline with the best deal, because they may have a even better deal that you can only find on their website. It's also helpful to know that fares for Southwest Airlines can only be found on southwest.com so you should always check that website too if you know they fly to your destination city.

Tip 4: Use a fare tracker

If you start looking early enough, you can use websites like Kayak and Bing to track fares – meaning you can punch in a departure and return date for a specific destination and they will continuously monitor the price and send you an email alert when it drops and/or rises.

Even after you buy a ticket, you can still use Yapta to continue tracking the fare -- if the price goes down below what you paid, you may be eligible for a voucher or credit from the airline for the price difference. There is a cost to re-book your flight for the lower price, so Yapta will only alert you when the refund is greater than the fee. This gives you some peace of mind if you are worried that you are booking too early and think that the price might drop a lot.

Tip 5: You may get a better deal from a travel agent

There are still some benefits in booking with a travel agent, especially if you have a complex itinerary with multiple destinations or are traveling in a big group. The agent may have good business connections in a certain destination and can arrange for transfers, hotel upgrades, discounts and other conveniences that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get if you did things on your own through a website.

Most importantly, if something goes wrong during your trip -- like for example you miss a flight -- the agent will be the one to straighten things out for you. Or if for some reason you need to cancel part or all of your trip, it’s easier for a travel agent to void a booking, something which is either very difficult or impossible to do if you booked online.

If you’re just buying a simple domestic flight from Point A to Point B, chances are you’re going to be able to find the best savings online. But if you’re going abroad, some travel agents have cheaper deals because of special relationships with airlines and providers. The best thing to do is shop: get a couple of quotes from some trusted travel agents and then see if you can find a better price online.

Ecotourism [Balitang America Travels]

If you've never been to the Philippines, you can get a taste for what it's rich, marine life is like at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. In one of my recent "Travels" segments on Balitang America, I interviewed research scientist Terrence Gosliner who is the senior curator of the Philippine Coral Reef exhibit: an impressive 212,000 gallon, 25-foot deep aquarium tank filled with fish, live coral and other aquatic life from the waters of the Philippines. The country is famous for having a unique and very diverse marine ecosystem.

Gosliner hopes visitors who see the exhibit at the Academy are inspired to see the real coral reefs in the Philippines. The reefs in the Verde Island Passage between Southern Luzon and Northern Mindoro, he said, are the "richest coral reefs of anywhere in the world."

But Gosliner said the coral reefs are in danger and has noted the damage to the marine ecosystems, since he began leading diving and conservation expeditions to the Philippines in 1992. Human activities such as dynamite and cyanide fishing threaten this fragile ecosystem, as well as on-shore construction projects, which remove protective barriers of mangrove trees or cause dirt, silt and sand to erode into the water and smother the coral. There are also tourists who break the coral while diving or take pieces home as souvenirs, and dive operators who damage the reefs with the anchors of their boats.

Visitors to the Philippines can do their part to help save the reefs by following careful diving practices and by choosing tour operators who promote ecological tourism. "Ecotourism" (as it is more commonly known) is a growing segment of the tourism industry that focuses on low impact travel to environmentally fragile areas. It means choosing activities, housing and transportation options that help preserve and protect your destination's natural beauty and animal/plant ecosystems for future generations. It also involves supporting the area's indigenous cultures and making choices that benefit the local communities economically and encourage them to wisely manage and maintain their natural resources.

The Department of Tourism is promoting ecotourism in the Philippines and several local tour companies offer eco-friendly activities like visiting the underground caves in Palawan, interacting with dolphins and whalesharks, birdwatching at Villa Escudero, or seeing the tarsirs in Bohol.

Travels is a weekly TV segment written and produced by Christi Morales. It airs every Monday during Balitang America's (News in America) 5:30pm PST newcast on ABS-CBN Global's The Filipino Channel (TFC). Balitang America can also be seen on KTSF Channel 26 at 6:45pm PST in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/japes18/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Public Press Story: UC regents approve furlough plan; standoff foreseen with unions

This story was originally filed on July 16th, which was the last day of the University of California Regents' three-day meeting in San Francisco. It resulted in the approval of a controversial, system-wide furlough program. I'm reposting the article below, but you can see the original post on The Public Press website.



By Christi Morales
The Public Press

In a 20-1 vote, the University of California Board of Regents decided Thursday to move forward with a contentious furlough plan that will affect more than 108,000 employees, setting the stage for a standoff between UC officials and labor unions.

Beginning Sept. 1, UC faculty and staff members will have to take 11 to 26 days off a year, depending on their salary level, which amounts to pay cuts ranging from 4 percent to 10 percent. Those making $40,000 or less will have to take 11 furlough days, with the number of days off increasing for those with higher salaries.

The plan is expected to create $184 million in savings for the 10-campus university system, which is saddled with an $813 million deficit.

UC President Mark Yudof must negotiate with the unions in order to implement the furloughs for represented employees, whose contracts fall under collective bargaining agreements. Some lab and student employees, as well as others paid through grants, are exempt from the plan.

Jeff Myers, vice president of patient care for AFSCME Local 1399 and a UC San Francisco surgical technician, said he’s disappointed by the outcome, but not surprised.

“It’s a slap in the face,” Myers said. “We had a lot of people who gave testimonies against this plan -- faculty, students, workers -- during yesterday’s meetings, but [Yudof’s] determined to do what he wants to.”

While it’s too soon to say what the unions will do, he said, “there could be legal action” involved.

“People are not going to just take this lying down,” Myers added.

He explained that a broad coalition of union leaders plan to meet in the coming days to discuss the next move. Among the unions in the coalition are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Coalition of University Employees and the University of Professional and Technical Employees.

In closing the UC Regents' three-day meeting at UCSF Mission Bay, Yudof warned that if the unions resist the plan, layoffs could follow.

Meanwhile, faculty and staff aren’t the only ones who will feel the pinch. UC students could be in for another fee hike. In addition to the 9.3 percent raise this fall, Yudof said it’s likely there will be another fee increase by January.


Reach the reporter at cmorales[AT]public-press.org.