UC workers to begin three-day strike on Tuesday

Some 15,000 patient care technical workers at the University of California will begin a three-day strike Tuesday, Oct. 23 to protest the university’s practice of outsourcing jobs to contract companies.

Workers represented by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 3299 say the pay for contract workers is less with fewer or no benefits. The action comes just months after UC’s 10,000 service workers staged a three-day walkout in May over what it described as growing income, racial, and gender disparities within the university’s workforce. Some 53,000 UC workers walked off the job.

Patient care workers include such jobs as nursing aides, respiratory therapists, radiology technologists and patient transporters. The union said the university decided last month to impose employment terms on the workers that would risk more outsourcing while flattening wages, raising healthcare premiums and lifting the retirement age.

“They’re destroying what were once career pathways to the middle-class for our state’s diverse population and are damaging the quality of service that we provide to students, patients, and everyday Californians,” the union said in a statement released Monday.

UC says union leaders are putting their agenda “above the needs of patients, students, employees and the public” by calling for yet another strike.

“Rather than engage in constructive talks at the negotiating table, AFSCME leaders are using the threat of a strike as a scare tactic,” UC officials said in a recent statement. “This approach already has cost UC service workers several thousand dollars’ worth of pay increases, limits on health insurance costs and other benefits.”

Union members plan to picket from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday at four UC medical centers, including UCLA Medical Center and UC Irvine Medical Center.