University of California service care and health care workers are on a two-day strike after they filed charges with the State Public Employment Relations Board alleging that the UC system engaged in illegal bad faith bargaining.
University of California service care and health care workers are on a two-day strike after they filed charges with the State Public Employment Relations Board alleging that the UC system engaged in bad faith bargaining. Credit: Rebecca Caraway / Noozhawk photo

University of California service and health care workers started a two-day strike Wednesday after filing charges with the State Public Employment Relations Board alleging that the system engaged in illegal bad faith bargaining.

The strike impacts 40,000 workers across every UC campus, including UC Santa Barbara, and campus medical facilities. The strike was authorized by AFSCME Local 3299, which represents service workers, patient care technical workers and skilled craft workers.

While UCSB doesn’t have a major medical facility, workers at the student health center are part of the strike, as well as dining hall workers and janitorial and groundskeeping staff, which adds up to nearly 600 workers at the local campus.

UCSB workers began their strike with a march around campus Wednesday morning and held a rally on the steps of Storke Tower. 

Rosalba Alcala, a senior custodian who has worked at UCSB for five years, said they need better insurance and better wages to be able to afford to live in the area. 

“We need to fight for better wages, for us to be able to afford health care, for us to be able to have a retirement when we get old. We just can’t rely on Social Security, and that’s what motivates me to be out here,” Alcala said. “We need to be together, and we need to send a message to UC that we are important, too.”

The union has been working since January to get a new contract. The current patient care worker contract expired on July 31, and the contract for service workers expired Oct. 31, union representatives said. 

In the unfair labor practice charge, the union alleges that university representatives came to the bargaining table unprepared and without the authority to negotiate, unilaterally changed health care costs, and refused to provide staff vacancy and financial information. 

Rosalba Alcala, a senior custodian who has worked at UCSB for five years, says they are in need of better insurance and better wages to be able to afford to live in the area.
Rosalba Alcala, a senior custodian who has worked at UCSB for five years, says they are in need of better insurance and better wages to be able to afford to live in the area. Credit: Rebecca Caraway / Noozhawk photo

Alcala said she thinks the UC system is going to try to delay negotiations for as long as it can to save money.

“If our chancellor (Henry Yang) got a raise of over half-a-million, then I don’t understand why we can’t get a raise,” Alcala said. “We’re just asking for survival, like insurance — everybody needs insurance. Better wage. We would want to spend weekends with our family, but we can’t because people are working.”

Alcala said many service workers have to work multiple jobs just to be able to survive in the area, leaving them with little time to spend with family. 

Multiple students and faculty attended Wednesday’s strike out of solidarity with the union. Professor Rafael Sandoval from the Chicano Studies department spoke to the crowd about how service workers keep the campus going.

“You guys deserve to be treated with respect and dignity,” Sandoval said. “You guys are doing so much work and not being compensated properly for it. That’s not right. They’re not bringing up your salary with inflation. Health care costs are going up. People are sleeping in their goddamn cars. It’s not right!”

Sandoval noted that if chancellors and faculty are getting raises, health care and service workers should get raises, too.

Jeremy Goldberg, executive director of the Central Coast Labor Council, spoke at the rally to express support and solidarity for the workers. Goldberg also spoke about the recent presidential election results and former President Donald Trump winning a return to the White House. 

Jeremy Goldberg, executive director of the Central Coast Labor Council, speaks at the rally Wednesday to express support and solidarity for the workers.
Jeremy Goldberg, executive director of the Central Coast Labor Council, speaks at the rally Wednesday to express support for the workers. Credit: Rebecca Caraway / Noozhawk photo

“As unions, we put a lot of time and resources and energy into elections, and sometimes we win those elections, sometimes we lose those elections,” Goldberg said. “The things that we win in Sacramento, in D.C., and in the county Board of Supervisors, we can lose, but the things that we win in negotiations and the things that we win on the picket line, nobody can take away.”

Goldberg encouraged the workers to keep fighting for themselves, but also for those who can’t fight.

While UCSB doesn’t have a major medical facility, workers at the student health center are part of the strike along with dining hall, janitorial and grounds-keeping staff, impacting nearly 600 workers at the university.
While UCSB doesn’t have a major medical facility, workers at the student health center are part of the strike along with dining hall, janitorial and groundskeeping staff, impacting nearly 600 workers at the university. Credit: Rebecca Caraway / Noozhawk photo

“Fight and win. Win for yourselves, win for your coworkers in your department,” Goldberg said. “Win for your fellow union members around the state, on every UC campus that are on strike today and tomorrow, and win for every other worker out there who doesn’t have what you have, who doesn’t have a union and can’t go on strike.”

The strike is set to continue until 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

— Noozhawk staff writer Rebecca Caraway can be reached at rcaraway@noozhawk.com.