About 37,000 University of California patient care and service workers walked off the job at all UC campuses and medical centers across the state.
Members of AFSCME Local 3299, the union representing workers in medical facilities and food service employees, kicked off their two-day strike at midnight on Wednesday.
According to the union, the contract for patient care workers expired on July 31st while the service workers’ contract expired on October 31st.
Last month, the union filed formal charges with the State’s Public Employment Relations Board, accusing the university of “bad faith bargaining.”
In a press release, union officials claim that the university “announced plans to unilaterally increase employee healthcare costs by hundreds of dollars every month, refused to provide critical staff vacancy and financial information relevant to the bargaining process, and detailed a pattern of UC representatives repeatedly coming to bargaining sessions unprepared and without authority to negotiate.”
Striking employees outside UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center told Jon Baird they want a fair offer.
“They're trying to lock us in a five-year contract. The last three of them are going to be a 2% increase each year,” one striking employee said. “That's not enough to live out here in Los Angeles.”
Another striking employee said the university broke the law.
“They're unilaterally increasing health care costs, thousands of dollars a year for folks who are struggling and paycheck to paycheck to get by and we're really short-staffed in the hospital since COVID,” she said.
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In a statement released earlier this month, UC officials denied the union’s claims of bad faith bargaining and that they offered the union a 26% pay raise over five years.
Univeristy officials “also proposed $75 or $100 monthly credits for AFSCME members to offset employee premium increases,” according to the statement.
University officials also said they are working with UC Health System leaders to “mitigate the potential impacts of a strike and ensure the critical operations of the University system, including patient care, continue at the level of excellence UC patients, students, faculty, and staff expect and deserve.”
Striking employees will return to work Thursday night at midnight.
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