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Thousands of workers from University of California campuses and medical centers across the Bay Area walked off their jobs Tuesday in a one-day strike over staff shortages and allegations of bad faith bargaining and unfair labor practices.
UC employees from all campuses throughout the state participated, including 20,000 workers from the University Professional and Technical Employees-Communication Workers of America Local 9119 union, or UPTE-CWA Local 9119, and 40,000 workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 union, or AFSCME Local 3299.
UPTE-CWA Local 9119 is comprised of health care, technical and research workers employed by UC. AFSCME Local 3299 is UC’s largest employee union, whose members are technical, skilled craft and service workers.
Both unions have been trying to reach new contracts with the university system for months, to no avail.
Tuesday’s strike coincides with UPTE-CWA Local 9119 recently filing an unfair labor practice charge against UC. Members of AFSCME Local 3299 joined the strike to support UPTE-CWA Local 9119, saying that their union has endured similar labor disputes with UC.
“There has been a pattern of bad faith bargaining by UC,” Todd Stenhouse, a spokesperson for AFSCME Local 3299, said in an interview. “An attack on one worker is an attack on us all, we have to stand together.”
The unfair labor practice charge alleges that UC has refused to bargain over wages for certain workers such as behavioral health clinicians, research and development engineers and optometrists who joined the union in recent years.
While UC has offered wage increases of 5% in 2025, 3% in 2026, and 3% in 2027 for longstanding UPTE-CWA Local 9119 employees, UPTE says that UC wants to conduct separate wage negotiations for recently organized positions, also referred to as accreted titles.
‘Piecemeal bargaining’
In January, an email exchange between UPTE-CWA Local 9119 president Dan Russell and Kevin Young, a chief negotiator for UC’s labor relations, demonstrated that UC wants to engage in separate discussions for the wages of accreted positions.
“All aspects of successor bargaining apply to the accreted titles,” Young wrote in an email to Russell. “The only aspect which is specific to accretion bargaining is the demand that UPTE agree to engage in accretion bargaining over the pay scales for the accreted titles.”
Russell accused UC of “piecemeal bargaining” by wanting to negotiate separately the wages of accreted workers.
“You are trying to treat these workers as if they are not part of UPTE’s bargaining units, but they have been part of our units for many months — and in some cases, years,” Russell wrote to Young. “Your refusal to bargain over these titles in bargaining is illegal ‘piecemealing’ and represents ongoing bad faith bargaining by UC.”
“You are trying to treat these workers as if they are not part of UPTE’s bargaining units, but they have been part of our units for many months — and in some cases, years.”
Dan Russell, UPTE-CWA Local 9119 president
Although UC appears to want to discuss pay scales for accreted titles separately, a UC spokesperson said in a statement that the “accreted positions will be subject to the same across the board increases offered.”
UC also clarified in the statement that separate negotiations for accreted positions are due to the transition process these workers must go through to become a part of the existing bargaining units.
The Unfair Labor Practices charge also alleges that UC unilaterally changed the health insurance premiums for workers, meaning that the university system did not bargain with the union before imposing changes to health insurance costs.
UC uses a four-tier pay band system that matches health insurance costs according to an employee’s annual salary.
“UC has a long-standing practice of tiering its employee’s health care contributions, ensuring that individuals pay less if they make less,” UC officials wrote in a statement last year after the university system announced in October it planned to increase health insurance premiums for employees in 2025.
UC proposes subsidies for health care premiums
While UC said in the statement it would keep union workers at 2024 premiums until contract negotiations are completed, both unions said that health care costs increased anyways by the UC changing the pay band thresholds.
“UC bypassed bargaining altogether to impose higher health care costs on UPTE members,” Stenhouse said. “They tried to do the same thing to us a few months ago. That’s one of the reasons why we joined this strike.”
While UC has acknowledged its rise in health care costs, it is trying to mitigate the increases by offering reductions for lower-paid workers.
“UC has proposed premium subsidies to offset health care premium increases,” UC officials said in a statement. “If accepted by the union, these increases would reduce monthly premium costs by $75 or $100 per employee, with the larger amount reserved for lower-paid workers.”
The two unions say that these disputes, especially the rise of health insurance costs, will only exacerbate UC’s staffing shortage.
“There has been an escalating staff vacancy crisis at UC,” Stenhouse said. “The university has acknowledged that the staff vacancy rate is tripled. We’ve seen a third of our members voluntarily leave their jobs over the last three years.”
“The fact is, you’re never going to get a resolution to these issues unless you have two parties willing to come to the bargaining table in good faith,” Stenhouse said.
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