I ' ve never seen no plants grow out of no toilet <| sep |> Here are excerpts from a letter that one of the joint staff members wrote anonymously , as their afraid that if they took credit there would be reprisals during the rehiring process . As you may have heard , there ' s been an upheaval with the production staff shared between La Jolla Playhouse and UCSD ' s Department of Theatre and Dance . This affects a group of 21 staff members that are most commonly referred to as the ' jointstaff ' and are career employees of UCSD . The Department UCSD funds half of their salaries , with the other half provided by La Jolla Playhouse . All of these employees have been given layoff notices effective January 2017 . In response to the layoffs , UCSD has created 21 jobs for which they are encouraging the laidoff staff to apply . But these jobs come with two caveats First , they are NOT fulltime , 12 month jobs , but rather 75 percent time , ninemonth jobs . Second , and perhaps more absurdly , these jobs are a full pay grade lower than ones the staff previously held . Despite insistence from faculty that the Department expects the same quality of work from the production staff , the jobs being offered are demotions from the previously held positions . There seems to be a feeling that because the staff will no longer work for La Jolla Playhouse , somehow the work required will be of a lesser quality or require less effort to accomplish . We know this is patently false and believe the demotions to be both a violation of UCSD ' s title and pay policy as well as an insult to UCSD ' s Principles of Community . The cut to 75 percent time coupled with the demotion in classification affects not only the employee ' s wages , which will be 25 to 45 percent lower than before the layoff , but also their pension and retirement benefits . Most of the current UCSD production staff have dedicated the last ten to twenty years or more of their careers to UCSD and La Jolla Playhouse . They are now faced with taking crippling financial losses to stay , or having to leave UCSD entirely in order to make ends meet . Put simply , this is a disaster for the UCSD production staff . A brief history The original intent of the jointstaff was to work approximately six months for the Department and six months for La Jolla Playhouse . Prior to 2005 , UCSD generally operated from September to June and La Jolla Playhouse generally operated from May to December . When La Jolla Playhouse opened the Potiker theatre in 2005 , they decided to become a yearround producing theatre which began to put a strain on the jointstaff structure . As the staffing needs increased for La Jolla Playhouse , they began to add their own fulltime production staff members . But those staff members , paid by La Jolla Playhouse , were ONLY able to achieve full time status by working for both UCSD and La Jolla Playhouse . For the past ten years , the jointstaff managers have supervised a combination of UCSD , jointstaff and La Jolla Playhouse production staff seamlessly . During this time , this has been a fruitful working relationship that has greatly benefited both UCSD and La Jolla Playhouse . In the past few years , it ' s become clear that La Jolla Playhouse and UCSD needed to make changes to help alleviate the stress and workload experienced by the jointstaff managers . The most common suggestion has been for La Jolla Playhouse to hire a set of dedicated assistant or associate managers to help manage La Jolla Playhouse productions during UCSD ' s Fall and Winter quarters . La Jolla has refused to act on this suggestion preferring instead to place an increasingly disproportionate burden on the jointstaff managers . Recently two sets of actions were taken by the production staff . On the UCSD side , the jointstaff began formal complaint procedures through normal UCSD HR channels to try resolve their need for more staffing support . On the La Jolla Playhouse side , the production staff has voted to be represented by IATSE 122 . IATSE is currently negotiating the initial contact with La Jolla Playhouse . The current layoff of the jointstaff affects both of these actions . On the UCSD side , this feels very much like retaliation for raising these concerns in the first place . In 2014 , an independent study was conducted by UCSD that confirmed many of the jointstaff ' s assertions regarding their working environment . On the La Jolla Playhouse side , IATSE is struggling with promises that were made to both their membership and the jointstaff . Those promises included The jointstaff managers would keep their jobs and continue to supervise the new IA members . The UPTE hourly unionrepresented jointstaff would not have their jobs taken by IA members . The current fulltime La Jolla Production staff would continue to have fulltime jobs in the future . These were promises made by IATSE prior to the vote in response to concerns raised by the voting group . Through NO FAULT of IATSE , it now appears all of these promises are in jeopardy of being broken . The layoffs would result in La Jolla Playhouse hiring an independent set of managers . All of the work previously done by the hourly jointstaff would now be done by IATSE members . In order to afford the new , ninemonth staffing structure , UCSD no longer has any funding to overhire any additional staff . Because UCSD would no longer overhire any La Jolla staff , there will not be enough work at La Jolla to create fulltime jobs for the remaining IATSE staff . These La Jolla Playhouse staff members count on working two to three months a year for UCSD in order to fund their fulltime positions . There are additional challenges created by the splitting of the production staff Currently , the jointstaff managers supervise not only production staff , but also the facilities and the inventory props , costumes , shop equipment , lighting equipment , sound gear , etc . In the plan to split the staffing goes forward , UCSD and La Jolla Playhouse will be in endless completion for resources . There is no current plan for solving this situation . The production staff has simply been told we ' ll figure it out . This is an unacceptable situation . Currently the Department benefits from the experience and mentorship of the jointstaff based in part on their interaction with the professional designers who work at La Jolla Playhouse . If the plan to split the staffing goes forward , UCSD staff will no longer have any direct interaction with La Jolla Playhouse designers . This lack of staff interaction will also have a profoundly negative effect on UCSD ' s MFA residency program . Recently UCSD ' s Office of the President rolled out a new Safety program for all UC theatres . Currently the jointstaff managers are responsible for the implementation and supervision of that policy . If the plan to split the staffing goes forward , there will be no one to comprehensively oversee these policies . If the UCSD managers are absent for three months each year , there will be no one to protect the best interests of UCSD in regards to the equipment or the facilities , much less protect the staff from unforeseen dangers created during the manager ' s absence . There have been some misunderstandings and halftruths spread regarding the reasons for this action . This has been sold to the faculty as the opportunity to secure for themselves a staff fully dedicated to the Department . The reality is , should this plan go forward , support for the Department will be at its lowest level in more than twenty years . This will be a staffing reduction so severe , it will not be possible to accomplish anything resembling the quality of production the Department currently expects or enjoys . If you have ever benefited from the leadership , mentorship and professionalism provided by the production staff at UCSD , we are counting on you to return the favor by helping us spread the word .