UC Patient Care and Service Workers Plan Open-Ended Strike Starting Next Month

Tens of thousands of University of California patient care and service workers plan to walk off the job May 14 with no return date in sight, union officials announced Wednesday, after long contract negotiations have failed to yield an agreement.

The strike would disrupt operations at UC campuses and medical facilities statewide in a historic move, according to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents some of the university’s lowest-paid employees.

“It will be incredibly hard on our families, but we know UC is proposing a future where workers’ rights are ignored and we fall further and further behind,” union president Michael Avant said at a press conference outside UCSF’s Mission Bay Medical Center.

“We aren’t demanding millions of dollars in salaries like they give to the executives,” said Avant, who works transporting patients at UC San Diego’s health system. “We are asking for our employer, California’s third-largest employer, to bargain with us in good faith.”

The union representing about 42,000 cafeteria and custodial workers, X-ray technicians, respiratory therapists and other employees has held five short walkouts at UC during more than two years of bargaining. Avant said those previous work stoppages failed to move the university on workers’ top issues: housing affordability and health care costs.

AFSCME patient care employees have been working without a contract since August 2024, and service workers since November of that year. As housing and health care costs rise, many of the employees are struggling to make ends meet, union officials said.

In a statement, university representatives rejected the union’s accusations of unfair labor practices and said the UC system remained committed to giving employees wage increases and other benefits as quickly as possible, recognizing the cost-of-living challenges that many of its workers face.

“The University of California remains focused on reaching an agreement that delivers real, immediate benefits for employees and is sustainable over the long term,” the statement said. “We are disappointed that AFSCME is moving toward an open-ended strike despite the significant progress made at the bargaining table.”

Since bargaining began in January 2024, the university said it has proposed to increase total pay by 32.3% through 2029, adding that the hourly wage for its lowest-paid employees was raised to $25 last year. UC has also offered workers a bonus of up to $1,000, extra payments for long-serving employees, and monthly stipends and other measures to help manage rising health care costs. More than 16,000 AFSCME members pay less than $100 a month in health care premiums, the statement said.

“This represents substantial movement and a good-faith effort to respond directly to employee priorities,” the university said.

Union representatives said UC’s total pay raise offer was in reality lower, slamming the 32.3% figure as based on “fuzzy math.” They argued that the university proposals have made an affordability crisis worse, including for workers living in homeless shelters and out of their cars.

Liz Perlman, executive director of AFSCME Local 3299, said UC has unilaterally increased health care premiums for employees, sometimes doubling their costs. The university has also refused to discuss a union proposal to provide emergency financial assistance to workers at risk of eviction or foreclosure, based on a program already in place at UC Davis, she added.

“Our members don’t eat percentages; they pay gas with dollars. Right now they are choosing between buying inhalers and buying a tank of gas,” said Perlman, adding that members earn $62,000 a year on average. “Your take-home pay is going to be so small … We live on so few dollars that any increase is putting people at a breaking point.”