A union representing more than 40,000 workers across the University of California campuses and medical centers announced Wednesday that it would launch an open-ended strike next month unless its contract demands are met, opening up the possibility of postponed medical procedures, limited cleaning at hospitals and campuses and reductions in undergraduate dining services.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3299 (AFSCME) union’s membership covers essential workers including custodians, food service staff in campus dining halls and hospital cafeterias, gardeners, and skilled craft workers including plumbers and electricians. In hospitals, the employees serve as patient care workers such as radiology technologists, nurse’s aides and patient transporters.
The union is demanding higher wages and lower healthcare costs as workers struggle with living expenses in the high-cost communities where most UC campuses and hospitals are located, including Westwood, La Jolla, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Irvine.
The strike would be a major blow to UC’s operations, and would be the largest system-wide work stoppage since 48,000 unionized academic workers — including teaching assistants, readers, and graders — hit the picket line for nearly six weeks in 2022.
Last November, UC reached contract agreementsto avert strikes by 21,000 healthcare, research and technical professionals in the University Professional and Technical Employees union and 25,000 members of the California Nurses Association. In March, 28,000 Academic Student Employees represented by UAW 4811 also approved a new contract.
But negotiations between UC and AFSCME, which routinely protests UC Board of Regents meetings and at events with UC President James B. Milliken, have become strained. The union has mounted multiple one-day or multi-day strikes in recent years but has not held an open-ended work stoppage.
The union said some members often fall behind on rent and resort to long commutes to cut back on high-cost housing near work, while others sleep in cars. The union is also asking for access to UC-administered housing programs, such as sub-market rate loans for home purchases that are available to certain faculty and senior employees.
In a statement, UC labor relations spokesperson Heather Hansen said the university was “disappointed” in the strike decision “despite the significant progress made at the bargaining table. The University of California remains focused on reaching an agreement that delivers real, immediate benefits for employees and is sustainable over the long term.”
Since bargaining began in January 2024, Hansen said UC has substantially increased its offers for pay raises and added a $1,000 contract ratification bonus. She pointed The Times to a proposed salary chart that showed the long-term potential raises for two categories of workers.
A “senior custodian,” for example now makes $70,789, a salary that would rise to $89,201 in 2029, under the UC offer. A “hospital lab technician 3,” now earns $88,200.00, which would increase to $111,139.76 under UC’s last offer. Union leaders said that UC’s offers will still leave overall members with incomes that lag behind long-term inflation.
“UC has also added longevity payments for long-serving employees, and new caps and offsets to help manage rising health care costs. This represents substantial movement and a good-faith effort to respond directly to employee priorities,” Hansen said. She said an “open-ended strike is unnecessary and risks disruption for patients, students, and campus operations.”
The union said it planned the strike after filing two unfair labor practice charges against UC with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board.
One accuses UC of violating labor rules by not bargaining with the union over its demand for housing benefits. Workers “should not be living out of their cars, working multiple jobs, or commuting hours each day just to put food on the table, while UC gives out low-interest mortgages and cash for down payments to its much more affluent senior executives and faculty,” the union wrote to the board.
The other charge accuses UC of imposing “unilateral changes to the terms and conditions of employment” for union members. Last July, the university said it would automatically give raises to employees to among its lowest paid workers, bringing them to $25 per hour or a 5% wage increase — whichever was higher. UC said it took this action after making its “last, best and final offer.”
In its filing, the union said the action was done “in a scattershot manner” and hundreds of employees either did not receive or waited months or did not receive the raises. The union also charged UC imposed new health care rates without an opportunity to bargain.
The board has not determined if UC engaged in wrongdoing.
AFSCME 3299 President Michael Avant, who works as a patient transporter at UC San Diego Medical Center, joined union leaders to announce the strike during a Wednesday event at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus.
“We are demanding millions of dollars in salaries like they give to the executives,” Avant said. “We are demanding the free homes that they give to the chancellors. We are asking for California’s third-largest employer to bargain with us in good faith. We know it will be disruptive for our students and patients. That’s why we are announcing this action a full month in advance, so our students and patients can prepare and plan ahead.”
The union has about 9,500 members at UCLA. Among them is UCLA Medical Center clinical care worker Monica Martinez, who spoke alongside Avant.
“As a single mom, I thought I could finally quit my second job …. but the housing market had a different idea,” said Martinez, who is vice president of the union’s patient care unit. “Rent quickly became unaffordable. I made things work by living with my sister. Most recently, my son and his young family moved in to help with costs. UC has taken agency away from me by refusing to discuss housing at the bargaining table.”
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