Thousands of workers who are part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 (AFSCME 3299) from all University of California (UC) campuses and health centers went on strike on Nov. 20 and Nov. 21. Around 100 members were present at UC Riverside’s (UCR) picket line between Bannockburn Village and the Arts Building.
On Nov. 14, AFSCME Local 3299 announced the strike on their X account. In their post, they shared, “Frontline Service and Patient Care UC workers are on strike to protest UC’s bad-faith bargaining and unfair labor practices. UC’s illegal conduct has left workers who take care of students and patients every day with no choice but to go on strike,” and encouraged both union members and community members to join them on their strike line.
The statewide strike was authorized with 99% of members voting in support. A few weeks prior, on Oct. 18, AFSCME Local 3299 posted on X that they had filed a Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) against the UC system. This charge was made against “UC’s bad faith bargaining, including illegal and unilateral increases in healthcare costs.” According to the post, the UC intended on increasing premiums, increasing co-pays and imposing coinsurance for some specialty drugs, thus leading to an average $800 cut to take home pay for service and healthcare workers.
Representing about 37,000 employees in the UC system, including 25,000 members in its patient care technical unit and 11,400 workers in its service care workers unit, AFSCME claimed in the ULP that the University came to the negotiation table unprepared, presented AFSCME with predictably unacceptable proposals, changing health care costs and failed to provide AFSCME with critical information during time-sensitive negotiations.
To remedy the situation, The Public Employment Relations Board ordered the University “to remedy, and cease and desist from, all of its bad faith conduct, to suspend implementation of any changes to healthcare benefits” and to “promptly provide AFSCME with the information it has requested.”
On Nov. 19, UCR Housing Services sent an email to UCR Housing Residents sharing that they received notice of a system-wide Labor Action by AFSCME Service Workers. In this email they shared that “Due to the impacts of a reduced workforce, custodial and dining services will continue, but in a reduced format,” but that during this time basic cleaning services and maintenance services will be provided. Dining halls offered a reduced menu but continued with their regular hours while several other venues had reduced hours or closed for the duration of the strike.
Jesse Hernandez, a senior cook who has worked for UCR for 25 years, executive board member and acting organizer for the Riverside campus and Placentia Linda Hospital was one of many workers present at the picket-line. He shared that “we’ve been bargaining for 11 months. Today and tomorrow, the strike is really about health care. It’s about the increases that we haven’t even got an agreement on, and they want to implement increases on the workers who can’t afford [these] increases.”
People from various departments across UCR came to strike. Hernandez explains this is a school-wide issue, “We have facility services. We have auxiliary services, which is housekeeping in the dorms. We have dining services, which is all the food…if you see any physical labor, it’s us, in addition to the Student Health Center… if you see a cook, you see a gardener, you see a custodian, these are the people who actually run the University of California. Without them, without this hard labor, the university will shut down.”
Jeanette Obeji, a cook in student dining shares her perspective, “We went on strike because UC is breaking the law by not bargaining in good faith. We deserve the dignity and respect of a fair contract and will keep fighting until we are heard.”
Hernandez ends by stating, “We got a lot of old timers here. And all these old timers, if it wasn’t because we love working with students, we would have left. But we’re here because we love working for UCR.”
On Nov. 8, a statement was released by the University of California in which they shared, “We fundamentally disagree with AFSCME’s claims of bad faith bargaining and characterization of unacceptable bargaining proposals” and that “Collaboration ceased in May when AFSCME stopped responding or even acknowledging the University’s proposals, including the University’s most recent economic proposal which raised wages to $25 an hour across the institution by July 1, 2025.”
In a previous statement released on Nov. 1, they claimed that AFSCME’s statements are “unfounded, confusing and not consistent with the parties’ bargaining history” and that issues raised in the ULP are “false and further, reflect issues that are endemic to the nation: increased cost of living and the economic disparities the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated.”
