UC and 8,000 service workers reach tentative deal on labor dispute over outsourcing, wages
More than 8,000 service workers at the University of California announced Wednesday that they have negotiated a tentative contract agreement with their employer, ending one of the university system’s longest-running labor dispute.
The union did not immediately provide details on the agreement, but it released a statement saying that the agreement would lift labor standards and curtail outsourcing.
The workers, all members of the local 3299 bargaining unit of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, will now vote on whether to accept the contract. The service unit includes individuals who work as custodians, truck drivers, cooks and animal technician assistants.
“This tentative agreement takes historic, enforceable steps to strengthen middle class career pathways at UC, and to combat the outsourcing abuses that have only served to depress wages, erode benefits and increase inequality,” said AFSCME 3299 President Kathryn Lybarger. “Equally important, it provides UC’s lowest wage workers with a long overdue raise, affordable health care rates, and a secure retirement.”
In a statement released late Wednesday, UC leaders said they were “pleased that after working with AFSCME leadership to address joint concerns and resolve our outstanding differences, we have reached a multi-year agreement for our valued employees.”
The four-year agreement calls for annual wage increases of 3 percent from 2020-24, but upon contract ratification, workers will get a 3 percent bump. The tentative deal also calls for a number of experience-based wage increases, one for an unknown amount upon contract ratification, and others for 2 percent that will be paid out annually from 2020-2024.
The UC statement noted a number of other one-time bonuses:
▪ Eligible, full-time members of AFSCME’s service unit will receive one-time payments of $2,500 when the contract is signed and $1,500 in 2021, and eligible part-time employees will receive a pro-rated portion of those payments.
▪ Full-time employees who reach 20 years of service during the life of the contract will get one-time $1,000 payment starting in July 2020.
▪ The union also negotiated a one-time $500 payment for per diem and limited employees who worked at least 400 hours in calendar year 2019.
New employees in the AFSCME unit will get the same pension benefits as current workers, UC leaders noted in the statement.
AFSCME had expressed concerns over the last two years that UC was outsourcing too many jobs that should have gone to hiring full-time employees who would have been represented by the union. Contract workers, AFSCME leaders said, were becoming permanent fixtures rather than temporary hires.
In the new contract, UC leaders stated, the university agreed to make it easier for eligible contract workers to convert to UC employment, and it accepted added restrictions on contracting out jobs covered by the service unit contract. The UC contract has long prohibited administrators from laying off employees as a result of subcontracting decisions, and it continues to do so.
The UC is still in negotiations with roughly 19,000 patient care technical workers that AFSCME 3299 represents. Both the service and patient care technical workers have been without a contract since 2017, and they had staged a half-dozen strikes over that period.
“While the tentative agreement reached by UC and AFSCME represented service workers is an important sign of progress,” Lybarger said, “there remains more work ahead. It is now time for UC to provide its AFSCME represented Patient Care workers with an equally fair agreement that honors our members’ contributions to UC’s highly profitable health system.”
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 1:23 PM.
