Above photo: Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 – which represents service, patient care and skilled crafts workers – demonstrate on campus as part of a November strike. The union has called on its workers to strike again Feb. 26 and Feb. 27. Edward Ho/Daily Bruin.
More than 65,000 University of California campus and health center employees will launch a two-day strike on November 17 and 18 over the university’s failure to settle contracts addressing the cost of living and affordability crises facing its most economically vulnerable workers.
AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) Local 3299, which represents more than 40,000 UC service and patient care technical workers, will lead the strike, joined in solidarity by 25,000 UC nurses represented by the California Nurses Association.
AFSCME Local 3299 represents custodians, food service workers, patient care assistants and hospital technicians who have been working without a contract for more than a year. The union said members have been priced out of local housing markets by wage rates that have failed to keep pace with inflation, leading thousands to leave their jobs and fueling a growing staff vacancy crisis across the UC system.
“During nearly two years of bargaining, UC has spent billions of dollars acquiring new facilities, lavishing exorbitant raises on its wealthiest executives and funding housing assistance programs to help these same ivory tower elites buy mansions or second homes—but it won’t offer its frontline workers enough to pay the rent or keep pace with the skyrocketing cost of groceries,” said AFSCME Local 3299 President Michael Avant. “Our members have had enough of UC’s serial elitism, tone deafness and blatant disrespect for the workers who make this institution run, and that’s why they will strike at every UC campus and Medical Center on November 17 and 18.”
According to research cited by the union, UC’s frontline health and service workforce has experienced a nearly 10 percent decline in real wages. Thousands of UC employees have faced housing insecurity, long commutes, or reliance on limited housing subsidies. The weight of short staffing and uncompetitive job quality has led more than 13,000 UC service and patient care technical workers—over a third of this workforce segment—to voluntarily leave their jobs in the past three years.
“During the pandemic, UC administrators routinely called us ‘essential heroes,’” Avant said. “We were the ones sanitizing facilities to slow the spread, answering the call button, and giving sick patients their breathing treatments. Today, we’re being excluded from housing assistance that UC gives to its wealthiest employees; being told to accept wages that offer less purchasing power than we had seven or eight years ago, and being told that we should pay twice as much for our health insurance. It’s time for UC to get its priorities straight, and to treat us with the respect we’ve earned.”
Though UC is responsible for creating staffing contingencies to maintain operations during the legally protected strike, AFSCME Local 3299 said it has voluntarily exempted a small number of critical care workers from participating and created a patient protection task force to coordinate with UC hospitals. The task force will allow certain striking workers to respond to emergencies if UC’s contingency plans are insufficient to meet patient needs.
