Two Unions (57,000 members) 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

https://labornotes.org/blogs/2025/02/two-unions-strike-university-california

February 27, 2025 / Labor Notes staff

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.

FULL story at link above.