Campus service and patient care workers took over Storke Tower from Feb. 26-27 in protest of the University of California’s “illegal” efforts to hold up contract negotiations. Around 150 campus union members joined the statewide unfair labor practice strike.
Nina Timofeyeva / Daily Nexus
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 3299 is the University of California’s (UC) largest employee union, with 37,000 service and patient care workers. Contracts of over 11,000 service workers and 25,000 patient care workers expired last year, spurring union demands to increase pay and decrease healthcare costs.
The union has engaged in contract bargaining with the UC since January of last year. It approved a strike vote from Oct. 28-30 in response to the UC’s “bad faith bargaining” and alleged attempts to “silence workers,” according to an AFSCME 3299 press release. California Public Employment Relations Board deemed the strike legal and was involved in mediation. The last strike took place three months ago from Nov. 20-21. Since then, the union said the university continued to bargain in bad faith, prompting the latest strike.
“UC has chosen to illegally implement arbitrary rules aimed at silencing workers who are raising concerns while limiting their access to union representatives,” AFSCME Local 3299 President Michael Avant said in the press release. “UC’s blatantly illegal actions are standing in the way of constructive negotiations on the acute affordability crisis plaguing its frontline employees, and that’s why workers will exercise their legal right to strike.”
Nina Timofeyeva / Daily Nexus
Workers went on strike across all 10 UC campuses and six medical centers for the second time since the strike vote. Union organizers arrived at Storke Tower starting at around 4 a.m. both days to set up, and rallied across campus from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. They wore green AFSCME t-shirts and carried signs as they marched across campus to voice their demands to Chancellor Henry T. Yang outside Cheadle Hall at around 1 p.m., where his office is located.
AFSCME members picketed alongside University Professional and Technical Employees, Communications Workers of America (UPTE-CWA) Local 9119, which represents employees in various research labs and medical facilities across the UC. They are also on strike after accusing the university of bad-faith bargaining.
Tran Nguyen, media liaison for AFSCME 3299 and UC Berkeley alum, said the union has been unable to reach the bargaining table to address the affordability crisis due to a UC “intimidation campaign.”
“We haven’t been able to even sit down and get to the nooks and cracks of the contract, or even get to tackle the affordability crisis plaguing our workers, because we can’t even get to that table altogether. The playing field for the bargaining has not even been leveled enough for us to even talk about the content of what is it that our workers truly need,” Nguyen said.
According to Nguyen, the UC has been illegally interfering with workers joining the union by restricting access to union representatives, threatening to fire workers for joining the union, spreading misinformation about how much they pay workers and telling workers “striking is a disappointment” and “unsafe.”
“We agree that striking is a huge sacrifice. It’s not an easy thing for our members to do — to go on a multi-day strike like this. But it’s necessary, it’s also legal for us to strike. So the rhetoric that they have been shaping, and really a campaign to spread misinformation and try to silence workers who basically feed them, and serve them, and clean after them and clean after this institution too,” Nguyen said.
Nina Timofeyeva / Daily Nexus
The UC Office of the President (UCOP) said they are “disappointed” in the decision to strike, claiming to have “bargained in good faith” while the unions “remain unwilling to do the same” in a Feb. 21 press release. At the same time, the UC is committed to supporting unions in their “right to engage in lawful strike,” according to UCOP Communications Strategist Heather Hansen.
“AFSCME has not responded to the University’s proposals or counter proposals since May 2024. We have continuously reached out to the unions in an attempt to settle these contracts. AFSCME and UPTE are talking about UC negotiating, but they need to walk the walk and actually bargain in good faith,” Hansen said in a statement to the Nexus.
Groundskeeper for campus housing and union-member Serafin Zamora said they are pushing for a better contract, adjusted to the increasing costs of living in California. They are also advocating for housing benefits and improvements to unfair labor practices, such as short-staffing, which creates more work for employees and increases risk for injuries.
“I think we [are] pushing the UC to hire more people. If you hire more staff, that’s less injuries for the people. You see a lot of injuries because they have a lot of work to do,” Zamora said. “I got co-workers — they live in their cars. And they gotta commute, they have to pay high rent [and] high gas.”
Nguyen condemned “scabs,” or union members who choose not to strike, for not standing alongside their coworkers.
“The whole point of a strike is disruption … the whole point is that this university cannot function without the frontline workers, without service workers, without folks cleaning after them, without folks keeping this place running,” Nguyen said. “So I think that’s a little bit disheartening to see. But I think that what we need more than ever is worker solidarity among students, among the workers themselves, among even professors.”
According to Zamora, the strike is about worker solidarity across the UC system, not just at UCSB.
“It’s not only this campus, it’s across the state. All the 10 UC campuses [are] on strike. And all the 10, we send the same message. We don’t send different messages, whether UC San Diego, or UCLA or Irvine — we send the same message to UC,” Zamora said.
A version of this article appeared on p. 1 of the March 6, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.
