Employees of the University of California San Francisco protested proposed salary cuts and furloughs on 14 July at the institution’s campus on Parnassus Avenue.

[Watch a video of the protests here.]

The protests came on the eve of a 15 July meeting at which the University of California Board of Regents was planned to discuss the cuts.

About 100 nurses, janitors, researchers and administrative assistants marched outside the UCSF Medical Center and chanted slogans such as, “They say furlough, We say hell no!” and “They say layoff, We say Yudof!” during the protest.

The cuts and furloughs were proposed by Mark Yudof, president of the University of California, on 10 July. The university expects an $813 million reduction in state funding due to the state’s $26 billion budget deficit.

The protesters said that the planned reduction in state funding amounts to just 2.5 percent of the overall UC budget, and that the university could weather the shortfall by alternative means – for instance, by dipping into a $7 billion reserve fund or by additional fundraising.

But in an opinion piece published yesterday in The San Francisco Chronicle, Yudof and Russell Gould, chair of the UC Board of Regents, argued against tapping into the reserves and said much of the university’s funding comes in the form of donations and grants that cannot be reallocated.

Scientists across the University of California have also protested the cuts in a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and members of the state legislature.

More protests are planned today at the meeting of the Board of Regents, which takes place at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus.