UC’s largest employee union (AFSCME 3299) has announced a strike for May 7 through May 9, and two other large UC unions (UPTE and CNA) have announced that they will strike in sympathy with the AFSCME local. The Sacramento Bee estimates that the strike will involve “53,000 health-care, service, technical and research workers.”
According to the Bee, AFSCME 3299’s 24,000 patient-care and service workers rejected “the university’s last-and-best offer of 3 percent across-the-board wage increases and a prorated, lump-sum payment of $750.” Instead, the union seeks “wage increases of 6 percent, a freeze on health-care premiums and job security that eliminates contracting out jobs for which its members are trained.” In a white paper titled “Pioneering Inequality,” AFSCME 3299 maintains that the UC’s outsourcing of jobs and other unfair employment practices exacerbates racial, gender, and income disparities at the University of California.
UC-AFT (which represents UC lecturers) “stands in solidarity with AFSCME 3299” and has offered its members suggestions on how they might express their solidarity short of withholding their labor, which is prohibited by their contract (e.g., by joining picket lines and even holding classes on picket lines).
The board of the Davis Faculty Association expresses support for the upcoming strike and encourages members and non-members to express their support in whatever way they deem appropriate.
Picket lines consist of the UC campus and medical center boundaries, regardless of whether picketers are physically present. At the moment, there are plans to form a picket line on the main UCD campus at Hutchinson and La Rue as well as one on the UCDMC campus at 2315 Stockton Blvd. Demonstrations may be organized by AFSCME, UPTE, and CNA at yet to be determined locations.
At a minimum, the unions would welcome DFA members and UCD faculty on their picket lines and at any demonstrations organized.
Please respect the rights of Academic Student Employees (i.e., grad students) represented by UAW 2865, especially if any individual grad student exercises her right to observe the picket line as a matter of individual conscience and free expression, which is permitted by Article 19 of the UAW 2865 contract.
If you need to come to campus but wish to show support, you can:
– Hold class on the picket line or in another alternate off-campus location, as long as accessibility is assured for all students.
– Teach the issues, much as you would any other important current event that you might address in your class: instruct students in what a labor union is, what kind of work AFSCME 3299 members perform to sustain the university and hospitals, how a strike happens and what it means.
– Express solidarity with our sisters and brothers of AFSCME 3299. Tag them in social media posts and use these hashtags: #3299Strong, #inequality, #UCUnionsUnited, #solidarity.
More information about the bargaining and strike is available at:
https://afscme3299.org/2018/04/19/uc-workers-vote-to-strike-announce-speakers-boycott/
and
https://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/labor/bargaining-units/sx/