Nearly 9,500 UPTE members vote to affirm our bargaining principles

Between April 4 and 18, over 9,000 members cast their ballots to overwhelmingly ratify our 2024 Contract Platform. We're proud that with a majority of all UPTE workers at UC casting a ballot, more than 99% voted YES to stand behind our proposals to reset UC's priorities.

This high engagement means that our bargaining team will have a better understanding of what our members want—and that our members will be prepared to take action to win those things quickly. We should celebrate this accomplishment, but we should also see it as a stepping stone in our larger campaign to win a world-class contract for UC workers this year. 

This platform ratification was the culmination of more than a year of hard work from UPTE leaders who engaged nearly four times as many members as were engaged in our previous contract negotiations, first through a form that collected everyone's top 3 priorities and then through a bargaining survey with the top issues that emerged from those priorities.

We'll be sharing the next steps soon, but the most important thing we can always do is talk to our coworkers about the importance of joining and being active in our union. If you want to get involved in this work with us, please reach out and let us know.

Let's keep up the momentum and continue to work towards a fair and promising future for us all. Together, we can continue to build a stronger, more inclusive union that represents the goals and priorities of every UPTE member at the University of California. 

Dan Russell, UPTE President
Business Technical Support Analyst 3
UC Berkeley - TX Unit

Over 8,000 UPTE members came together in 2023 to discuss our priorities for the changes we would like to see at the University of California. This effort produced our UPTE Contract Platform, a unified statement of the priorities we will bring to contract bargaining with the University of California. From April 4 - 18, nearly 9,500 UPTE members across the state voted overwhelmingly to ratify this platform by over 99%.

If you have feedback on the platform you’d like to share with our bargaining team, please click here.

Read our 2024 UC Contract Platform below

    1. Significant Raises: significant across-the-board raises that make up for and keep up with inflation, equity with market pay where titles have fallen behind, and annual step increases for every worker. Additional financial assistance to address the ballooning cost of housing near every campus.

    2. Step adjustment for long term staff: Career staff should be increased to at least the step matching years of service or relevant experience - eg. 8 years = step 8 (or step 4.5 in ½ steps). Additional steps for workers who have been at UC for many years and who are already at the top step of their scale.

    3. Evening, night, weekend, and language differentials: Increased differentials and improved on-call pay that will reward and incentivize night, evening, and weekend shifts. Differential pay for staff who use multi-lingual abilities in their duties.

    4. Guaranteed reclassification and career progression: Guarantee appropriate classification based on actual duties assigned, as well as clear pathways to higher-level classifications.

    5. Parking/transit pass/carpool stipends: Limit parking costs, free public transportation, and facilitate/incentivize carpooling, cycling, and other forms of transportation.

    6. Pay for licensure & certification: UC will cover all costs of licensure and certifications that are required for your job.

    7. Pay equity with new hires: Pay for existing employees will be increased if new hires are paid more than current employees with similar experience in the same titles.

    8. Free tuition for UC employees & family

    9. More education time, conference & continuing ed pay: Additional time and financial assistance for continuing education, conferences, and other professional development

    1. Increased accruals, right to use and cash out vacation time: Increased vacation accruals, improved rights to use your vacation accruals, and the right to cash out vacation accruals.

    2. Reduced workweek: Right to transition to 36 hour workweek with no reduction in pay, benefits, retirement or leave accruals.

    3. Remote, hybrid, and flexible schedules: Require departmental negotiation of remote work, hybrid work, flexible scheduling, and/or voluntary reduction in appointments.

    4. Expanded Parental, Bereavement, and Life-Balance Leave: Provide additional, separate banks of leave for bereavement and work-life balance/mental health.

    5. Birthing, adoption, fostering or child-care assistance: Provide either stipends or reimbursement for child birth, adoption, fostering, or child care.

    1. Strengthen layoff protections: Provide improved alternatives to layoffs and strengthen layoff protections by seniority.

    2. Protecting union work: Move all appropriate titles into UPTE and end outsourcing of our work. Allow for more employees to act as union representatives in order to enforce these and other standards.

    3. Patient ratios/workload limits: Provide reasonable limits on caseload and workload, based on existing industry standards.

    4. Scheduling and promotions by seniority: Schedules based on years of service at UC, and to guarantee open positions to the qualified applicant with the most years of service at UC.

    5. Per diem/part-time conversion: Guarantee career conversion to part-time workers at the employee’s request.