University of California Service Workers Begin 5-Day Strike for a Fair Contract

July 17, 2008

STRIKE FOR JUSTICE – Workers picketing in front of UCLA’s medical center on July 14 are among 8,500 University of California service employees who staged a five-day strike in their months-long campaign for a fair contract.

Photo Credit: Nicole Moore

More than 8,500 service employees of the University of California, represented by Local 3299, launched a five-day strike to focus public attention on their battle for a fair contract and an end to poverty wages.

The workers have been negotiating in good faith with UC executives for almost a year, but talks have remained deadlocked for months. On July 11, after the union announced its intention to strike this week, the Superior Court of San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the strike. But leaders of Local 3299 say the judge’s order does not prevent union members from striking since the court stated only that Local 3299 could not strike until it provided the University of California with “adequate notice” of the exact dates of the strike, which the union did on July 10.

“It’s our right to strike,” LaKesha Harrison, a licensed vocational nurse and president of Local 3299, told UCLA’s the Daily Bruin. “It’s illegal for them to prevent people from exercising their constitutional right. We have to protect the workers.”

The employees, who have been working without a contract since January, are paid wages which are dramatically lower than other hospitals and California’s community colleges, where wages are 25 percent higher, on average, according to a report: “Failing California’s Communities.” Service workers, for example, are paid as little as $10 an hour.

“I am striking for my family,” says Rosario Cortes, a senior custodian at UC/Santa Cruz. “It’s a shame that I work at a world-renowned university but they aren’t paying me enough to support my family. UC has a responsibility to our communities to provide good jobs, starting by agreeing to a minimum wage that would lift many of us out of poverty.”

Many UC employees are forced to work two or more jobs, or rely on public assistance, to meet their families’ basic needs, according to Local 3299, which also represents some 11,000 patient care workers at UC’s five medical centers, who are not formally participating in this week’s strike action although they, too, are currently fighting for a new contract. Some, however, have walked out in solidarity with their striking sisters and brothers, despite disciplinary threats.

To read more about Local 3299’s campaign, click here (PDF). Also, visit Local 3299’s campaign website at TakeBackUC.org, and check out these stories in the San Francisco Chronicle, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and this video from KCRA-3 TV in Sacramento.