A group of employees founded University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) in 1990, believing that workers across the University of California and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory would benefit from a union to safeguard and expand their rights. In 1993, UPTE members voted to affiliate with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a 700,000-member union in the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest federation of unions in the United States, and with the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a North American national trade union center.
Key milestones:
1990: UC employees form University Professional and Technical Employees.
1993: UPTE votes to affiliate with the Communications Workers of America, becoming CWA Local 9119.
1994: 4,000 UC technical employees voted for UPTE representation.
1996: 3,700 UC research professionals joined UPTE.
1997: 2,000 UC healthcare professionals joined UPTE.
2025: UPTE reached a tentative agreement with the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and members voted to ratify it, with nearly 12,000 members participating in the ratification vote, with 98% voting in favor.
2026: A majority of 2,100 technical workers at UC voted to join UPTE, making us the largest tech-worker union in the United States, with 8,400 workers in the Technical Employees (TX) bargaining unit.
UPTE has grown to over 25,000 members as UC’s Medical Centers have expanded and as the union has added new titles to all of its bargaining units.
UPTE contracts also cover part-time, adjunct, and associate faculty, as well as counselors and librarians, at Butte College, College of the Sequoias, and Mt. San Jacinto College.
