Union leaders representing nearly 37,500 workers at University of California medical centers and campuses statewide said Wednesday, April 15, that they are moving forward with an open-ended strike beginning May 14, the first ever for the UC system’s largest union.
A top priority for Local 3299 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is to halt UC management’s alleged practice of short-staffing its facilities and cutting back on resources, said AFSCME spokesman Todd Stenhouse. The union also has raised concerns about UC spending billions acquiring new facilities and “lavishing exorbitant raises on its wealthiest executives and funding housing assistance programs” to help them buy “mansions or second homes” at the expense of frontline workers, according to Stenhouse.
“We are disappointed that AFSCME is moving toward an open-ended strike despite the significant progress made at the bargaining table,” said UC spokeswoman Heather Hansen. “The University of California remains focused on reaching an agreement that delivers real, immediate benefits for employees and is sustainable over the long term.”
Hansen explained that, since bargaining began in January 2024, UC has increased its proposal from roughly 25% total pay growth to 32.3%, while adding up to a $1,000 ratification bonus and strengthening year-over-year wage increases. UC has also added longevity payments for long-serving employees, and new caps and offsets to help manage rising health care costs through 2029.
“This represents substantial movement and a good-faith effort to respond directly to employee priorities,” Hansen said. “Given the progress at the table, an open-ended strike is unnecessary and risks disruption for patients, students and campus operations.”
Stenhouse said that UC’s offer hasn’t kept up with inflation, or provided a fair offer for its “lowest paid workers.”
Negotiations with unionized workers comes at a tough time for UC’s 10 campuses, as well as medical facilities, research laboratories and clinics, which have been dealing with the economic challenges of rising healthcare and tuition costs at its schools and “uncertainty about federal funding” and “unprecedented financial challenges,” the Oakland-based UC system has stated.
On Wednesday, AFSCME Local 3299 President Michael Avant and other union leaders said in a broadcast video over Facebook that the union also filed unfair labor practice charges against the UC system for sidestepping the collective bargaining process over the past two years while AFSCME workers negotiated without a contract.
The union also alleges that UC imposed contract terms, including higher healthcare rates, despite being legally required to bargain over such changes.
“Instead of bargaining in good faith, UC has imposed terms that amount to pay cuts and refused to bargain over the housing crisis that is most responsible for our members being forced to sleep in their cars and in homeless shelters,” Avant said. “Since, UC won’t meet its legal obligation to bargain in good faith, we have been left with no choice but to strike.”
UC did not respond to the allegations of its workers living in homeless shelters and sleeping in cars.
Avant was joined by Liz Perlman, executive director of AFSCME Local 3299, and Kathryn Lybarger, the union’s executive vice president, in a press conference at the Mission Bay campus where the UC system operates a 289-bed hospital complex specializing in the care of children, women and cancer.
The majority of AFSCME workers planning to strike in May are located on UC campuses in Irvine (7,000), Los Angeles (9,500), Riverside (500), Santa Barbara (500) and San Diego (7,250). Northern California campuses make up the rest.
AFSCME officials said the workers were covered by two labor contracts. One contract, which covered custodians, food service workers, groundskeepers and parking and security personnel, expired Oct. 31, 2024. The other contract, which covered workers in patient care units, including medical assistants, MRI technicians, operating room assistants, respiratory therapists and licensed vocational nurses, expired July 31, 2024.
UC made its last contract offer for the 32.3% pay bump to AFSCME workers in late February, according to Hansen.
Negotiators for AFSME and the UC system have been in discussions in recent months but failed to come to an agreement following a two-day strike Nov. 17-18, 2025. Two other major unions reached deals with UC prior to AFSCME moving forward with what was then the largest strike in UC’s history.
The other unions that reached a deal with UC and later ratified those contracts included the California Nurses Association, which represents nearly 24,000 nurses, and the University Professional and Technical Employees, which represents 21,000 healthcare, research and technical professionals.
The CNA reached a four-year agreement that included “meaningful pay and benefit increases” while UPTE’s contract added a roughly 28% pay bump over the next four years, the “largest in the union’s history” since its inception in 1990.
AFSCME also has been critical of UC Health in Irvine after the medical center laid off 44 of its union members — including respiratory therapists and patient care technical workers. Hours were cut for an additional 260 people.
Last week, UCI Health rescinded the layoffs of seven of the 150 workers laid off in March as part of a restructuring of its hospitals across Orange County. The seven rehired workers were placed at Fountain Valley, Lakewood Regional Medical Center and Los Alamitos Medical Center.
These hospitals were among four facilities and outpatient clinics that UCI Health acquired from Tenet Healthcare Corp. for $975 million in early 2024. The transaction also included Placentia-Linda Hospital.