Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.
Tens of thousands of University of California (UC) system health care and research workers who are members of AFSCME Local 3299 and University Professional and Technical Employees-CWA (UPTE-CWA) Local 9119 staged a multiday strike last week to protest the administration’s unfair labor practices.
Powerful, coordinated actions took place across all 10 UC campuses and five medical centers, as well as clinics and research laboratories. Both unions cite lack of meaningful movement on wage provisions as a major sticking point during ongoing negotiations with UC management. Research has shown that this share of the UC workforce that would be income eligible for limited government housing subsidies has nearly tripled since 2017. Instead of working toward a fair deal with AFSCME and UPTE-CWA, administrators have chosen to continue illegally restricting the freedom of members’ protected union activity, forcing nearly 60,000 staff to walk off the job.
“We all want to be in the center, taking care of patients, taking care of students, back in our research stations and we want to be doing that work. We don’t want to be out here,” said Michael Benaron, an UPTE-CWA member and physician assistant at UC Santa Barbara Student Health. “We just deserve the dignity of getting paid fairly well for the work that we do. The UC, it’s a world-class institution, and they should be paying world-class wages when we fight.”
“UC is attempting to silence our voices on the job — but we refuse to be silenced,” said Christopher Contreras, head custodian at UC Santa Cruz and a member of AFSCME. “Many of us work two or three jobs, seven days a week, while commuting up to two hours just to make ends meet. One job should be enough. It’s time for a change. We take care of UC. UC should take care of us.”
