AFSCME Local 3299 service and patient care workers for the University of California (UC) system staged a second statewide strike this week to protest what they call UC management’s intimidation of rank-and-file employees.
The strike came after the workers filed a new round of unfair labor practice charges alleging that UC illegally tried to prevent them from protesting, leafleting, picketing, striking and speaking up about declining real wages and rising staff vacancies.
The strike affected more than 37,000 UC workers and took place at all 10 university campuses and five medical centers, as well as clinics and research laboratories across the state. The workers previously struck in November 2024.
“Instead of addressing the decline in real wages that has fueled the staff exodus at UC medical centers and campuses at the bargaining table, UC has chosen to illegally implement arbitrary rules aimed at silencing workers who are raising concerns while limiting their access to union representatives,” said Local 3299 President Michael Avant Jr., who’s also an AFSCME International vice president. “UC’s blatantly illegal actions are standing in the way of constructive negotiations on the acute affordability crisis plaguing its front-line employees, and that’s why workers will exercise their legal right to strike.”
UC has granted massive raises and hundreds of millions of dollars in housing assistance to its highest-paid employees — executives, chancellors and CEOs — over the past four years. Meanwhile, more than 13,000 AFSCME 3299-represented UC service and patient care workers — more than a third of these vital workforce segments — have left as their real wages have declined and the cost of living has skyrocketed.
"When I started at UC-Davis, I was proud to work here, but what UC is doing to us now is not just wrong, it's illegal,” said Aaron Metcalf, a patient transport technician at UC-Davis Medical Center. “They have threatened us, intimidated us and tried to silence our voices while we call them out for illegally raising our health care costs without negotiating with us. I'm diabetic. All my medication costs have doubled and my copays for appointments cost more now, too. My wife and I have side jobs for extra income to make ends meet because we can't live at the wages that UC is offering right now.”
Instead of negotiating solutions, the university has imposed new rules that limit employees’ ability to speak out under threat of discipline or arrest.
“By refusing to bargain in good faith, the university has made it clear that it does not value the front-line workers who clean its facilities, serve food and treat patients,” Avant said. “UC’s efforts to illegally silence dissent from workers who are struggling the most is suggestive of an effort to concentrate even more power and wealth for its ivory tower elites. This is not a solution to the workforce supply and affordability problems facing this institution, but a glaring symptom of the problem that is driving workers onto picket lines.”
Local 3299 has been working to negotiate successor contracts for more than 37,000 service and patient care workers for nearly a year. The existing contract for patient care workers expired on July 31, and the contract for service workers expired on Oct. 31.
In 2023, Nathan Brostrom, UC’s chief financial officer, told the UC Board of Regents that the system’s staff vacancy rate had tripled since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research has since detailed a decline in real wages and a growing housing affordability crisis plaguing the university’s front-line health and service workforce. Many of them are forced to endure multi-hour commutes or sleep in their cars. The share of this workforce that would be income eligible for limited government housing subsidies has nearly tripled since 2017.
“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 Local 3299. “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.”