Two Unions Strike the University of California
UPTE members struck across the University of California system. Those 20,000 workers, plus 37,000 members of AFSCME Local 3299, walked out on Wednesday for two days. Photo: UPTE
Picket lines formed across California Wednesday as 20,000 health care, research, and technical workers in UPTE (Communications Workers Local 9119) and 37,000 patient care workers in AFSCME Local 3299 walked out on short strikes across the University of California system.
AFSCME will stay out for two days, UPTE for three. Both unions are charging that the university system is engaged in unfair labor practices.
They have been working under an expired contract since October. The workers struck in November, too. Then, Labor Notes’ Barbara Madeloni wrote how the UPTE workers have been remaking their union to prepare for this contract fight:
Michael McGlenn is a clinical psychologist at the University of California-San Diego. Three years ago, feeling the pinch of dues, he looked into dropping the union. He felt that “the best I could do was see the person in front of me and care for them,” he said, and as far as he could see, the union had nothing to do with what happened in his office.
That was until a member organizer went to see him. They talked about how his ability to care for his patients was related to turnover and understaffing that could only be fixed through collective action. That conversation not only kept McGlenn in the University Professional and Technical Employees—years later, he is a leader on his campus.
UPTE (Communications Workers Local 9119) is a union of 19,000 research support, health care, professional, and technical employees spread over the 10 UC campuses, six health centers, and three labs. Members are occupational therapists, research assistants, clinical psychologists, physicians assistants, and IT specialists, among other titles.
The range of jobs and the geographic spread of worksites presents a challenge for building solidarity. But McGlenn’s personal transformation is part of a larger union transformation that will culminate November 20, when UPTE is set to begin a major strike.
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It began when the Organizing for Power slate won a leadership election in 2021, with high hopes of mobilizing the full power of the union to win wages and benefits that could stem the tide of turnover and worker exhaustion.
They faced resistance from the incumbents they had unseated. The former president challenged the election results and filed charges against the entire slate. The new leaders were unable to access lists and contact information, because all this was on her personal email.
Undaunted, if knocked around a bit, the leaders kept reaching out to members, talking about workplace issues, and slowly changing the makeup of the executive board. At the union’s convention in 2022, they were able to add four new seats to the board and accelerate the change.
For Amy Fletcher, a researcher at UC Davis and UPTE treasurer, the difference in the new leadership was that before “we didn’t have an organizing model—just cold calling workers—but now we have a structure.”
Eventually they were able to pass an organizing plan for the next contract that called for hiring more staff and building an action network across the campuses. It squeaked through the executive board by only one vote. But since then, said Matthew Stephen, a physician’s assistant and co-chair of the UCSF chapter, “it snowballed.”
