About 20,000 members of the University Professional and Technical Employees-CWA Local 9119 voted to strike, according to a Feb. 14 union news release shared with Becker’s. The workers planning to strike include nurse case managers, pharmacists, mental health clinicians and clinical lab scientists.
The strike will occur at multiple locations within the university’s six health systems: UC Davis Health, UCLA Health, UC Irvine Health, UC Riverside Health, UC San Diego Health and UC San Francisco Health. All contracts expired at the end of October, the release said.
Union members cited unfair labor practices and inadequate staffing as reasons for the strike. The University of California said publicly available data shared with UPTE shows its head count has increased 13% since 2022 and that turnover rates are below national averages.
“It’s disheartening that UPTE continues to talk about striking and insisting UC come back to the bargaining table when they didn’t show up for the last scheduled bargaining session and then declared negotiations were at an impasse before responding to UC’s previous offers,” a University of California spokesperson said in a Feb. 13 statement shared with Becker’s.
The university also said it has offered higher wages, including a 5% across-the-board raise, as well as expanded and guaranteed vacation approval and sick leave.
“The University of California is meant to be a world-class institution, but every day, I struggle to keep up with an ever-increasing workload,” Anastasia Vourakis, a physical therapist at UC Davis Health, said in the union release.
