Workers to strike over outsourcing at UC hospitals and campuses. What you need to know
Leaders of UC Davis Health said that they have not canceled any patient appointments in preparation for Wednesday’s strike by thousands of patient care and service workers, but they have alerted patients getting lab work whether they will have to go to a different facility.
Here’s what you need to know about Wednesday’s labor action:
Who’s striking?
Roughly 25,000 University of California workers represented by AFSCME 3299 voted to authorize their leaders to call strikes, as needed. The union’s ranks include service workers such as custodians, gardeners, food service workers and facilities maintenance staff, as well as health care workers such as medical transcribers, phlebotomists, admitting clerks and respiratory therapists.
AFSCME 3299 is a local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest trade union of public employees in the United States.
Where is the strike?
Workers will be setting up picket lines at UC campuses and medical centers around the state. In Sacramento, the major strike site will be at the medical center, but a small group may also picket at the UC campus in Davis.
Other major strike sites include UC San Francisco’s Helen Diller Medical Center, 505 Parnassasus Ave.; UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High St.; and UC Berkeley, 2495 Bancroft Way.
Picketers typically march through the streets surrounding the strike sites, so be prepared for traffic delays as they cross streets.
When is the strike?
Picketing will start at the UC Davis Medical Center, 2315 Stockton Blvd., during the morning rush hour and will continuing until at least 4 p.m. Times are expected to be about the same at other strike sites.
What’s the impact?
The California Public Employment Relations Board requires that AFSCME 3299 provide a specified number of employees to meet emergency-care needs at UC hospitals. UC also maintains contracts with contingency staffing agencies to limit the impact on care.
In a prepared statement, UCD Health leaders said: “On Wednesday, just as on every other day, UC Davis Health is prepared to provide high-quality patient care for anyone who walks through our doors. We do not expect any real impacts to patient care.”
Scheduled appointments and surgeries will proceed, according to the statement, and patients and employees will receive meals, even though, the cafeteria will be closed.
On affected campuses, students may see a lag in some services, but UC officials said in a statement released Tuesday that they “will do everything possible to limit the negative impact of this strike on our campuses and medical centers as well as our students and patients.”
Motorists near UC campuses and hospitals may experience some traffic delays as picketers take their protests to the streets.
Why strike?
AFSCME 3299’s leader and rank-and-file members have told The Sacramento Bee that the UC is using illegal tactics to outsource work that should be performed university employees. Wednesday’s strike, they said, protests these unfair labor practices and reminds the UC that Californians want its campuses and hospitals to provide residents of its communities opportunities to get middle-class jobs and meaningful retirement and health benefits.
“UC’s illegal outsourcing not only eliminates middle class career pathways – it unilaterally imposes lower wages, more inequality and more risk of employer abuse on thousands of vulnerable workers,” said Monica De Leon, a service coordinator at UC Irvine Medical Center and an AFSCME 3299 member. “We will not rest until this lawlessness stops.”
The growth in the number of those jobs, they said, would be greater if the UC had not expanded its outsourcing. They point to a 2017 California state auditor’s report that not only detailed that trend but cited ways that the UC violated rules on employee displacement after contracting out work. The union also has cited contracting data that the UC supplied to state legislators, showing substantial growth in contracting.
AFSCME 3299 filed a half-dozen unfair labor practice complaints with the California Public Employment Relations Board in late October, detailing contracts the university had extended or entered without bargaining over them with the union.
The allegations included a number of contracts at UC Davis Health. AFSCME-represented employees were promoted and contract employees were brought in to do their old jobs, according to one complaint, and another stated that UCD campus officials contracted with Roseville-based Pride Industries to do work that should be done by UCD’s service employees.
What does UC say?
UC has said that AFSCME leaders are spreading false information about contracting and job displacement.
UC contracts prohibit contracting out for the sole purpose of saving on wages and benefits, and the university can’t lay off AFSCME-represented employees because of a service contract. UC leaders said they are not seeking to change those prohibitions.
AFSCME has “enjoyed substantial union growth systemwide and explicit protections on service contracts,” UC said in an April statement. “From 2013 to 2018, AFSCME has grown by 17 percent, adding 3,626 more workers for a total of 24,979. An AFSCME employee is earning, on average, 21 percent more in wages now than five years ago.”
UC offered to give AFSCME leaders greater input in contracting decisions through joint union-management committees, UC leaders said, but they rejected that offer.
In statements, leaders described AFSCME’s strikes as an attempt to extract bargaining concessions by applying economic pressure, tactics that they said come at the expense of patients, students and community residents.
“We hope AFSCME leaders will soon bring UC’s latest fair proposal to its members for a long-overdue vote, so they can get the agreement and guaranteed raises they deserve,” UC said in a statement Tuesday. “AFSCME is the only union without a contract; UC has reached agreements with seven other unions during protracted negotiations with AFSCME.”
