UC Workers Authorize Longer Strikes After ‘Last, Best, Final’ Offer

The University of California received a resounding message of rejection from its employees last week, as more than 21,000 members of the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) union — which represents UC’s healthcare, research, and technical staff — voted by a 97 percent margin to authorize longer, statewide strikes.

That doesn’t mean a walkout is on the calendar, but the vote leaves little doubt about where workers stand. “The longest strike we’ve done so far is three days,” said Dan Russell, UPTE president and chief negotiator. “Given that UC is not moving, we need to turn up the pressure …. We’ve told our members to be prepared to go out for at least a week.”

Russell added that the vote wasn’t just about length. “We had done an earlier vote in February,” he said, “but this was about making sure we include all of our new folks, making sure everyone who had already voted was still supportive, and also just a message to the university that, yes, we are still this committed to withholding our labor if that is what it takes to get a fair contract.”

Union leaders say the underlying problem is a structural staffing crisis. “From day one, our ask of UC has been to meaningfully partner with frontline workers to protect patients, students, and research,” Russell said in a press release. “Sadly, we’ve been met with disrespect, a lack of urgency, and excuses while UC doles out massive raises for executives and billions for hospital acquisition and new construction. It’s the very definition of misplaced priorities.”

At UC Santa Barbara, nearly 400 employees are represented by UPTE, spanning healthcare, research, and technical roles. These folks keep Student Health running, maintain fire safety systems, and keep the labs going and the servers up. 

Michael Benaron, a physician assistant at UCSB Student Health, said the campus has been under a hiring freeze, forcing clinics to turn away patients — a strain that “trickles out to the larger community and increases wait times for surrounding clinics.” Access to quality care, he said, depends on having enough people to deliver it.

According to UPTE’s Communications Director Andrew Baker, “Understaffing or high turnover means access to mental or physical healthcare services can be delayed,” adding that “important campus infrastructure and public safety can also be at risk with fewer specialists available to address problems.”

As for how many students they serve, Benaron didn’t hesitate: “Twenty-seven thousand students — their health and their well-being,” he said. “The strike votes are a way of us saying that we do not accept the offer that UC proposed to us. Union members are overworked and underpaid.”

Last week, UC sent what it called its “Last, Best, Final” offer to the union — a technical term that sets the stage for the administration to impose terms unilaterally. The package included raises of 5 percent in 2025, 4 percent in 2026, and 3 percent in each of the following two years. But it also included the right to impose unlimited increases in healthcare costs starting this January.

On their website, UPTE pointed out that premiums for some non-union employees have already gone up more than $300 per month since 2023. “UC wants to trick our members into thinking that either we agreed to a contract or can’t win a better contract,” the union wrote. “That it isn’t worth it to keep fighting and striking.”

Russell said workers know the risks. “Workers go without pay when we strike, but our members are showing their commitment to their patients, their students, and the research they do. That’s how important this is to us,” he said. “We’re willing to take a bigger financial hit because we see this is what it’s going to take to actually improve the services we provide over the long term.”

The vote authorizes strikes of “as long as it takes,” but whether that turns into a weeklong walkout or another series of shorter actions will depend on UC’s next move. “We could call a strike any time,” Russell said. “We’re hoping the university will take that as a sign they need to change course.”