UPTE and the University have completed the final steps of the state-mandated impasse process with the release of a report by a neutral arbitrator. The report is not binding on either party: it is intended to help reach agreement but does not restrict UPTE's right to strike in order to win our demands.

Fact finding reports typically recommend the status quo and UC was unable to make such a case for their proposal to remove healthcare premium caps, leading the fact finder to conclude:

"This credit-based model does not exist in any other UC collective bargaining agreement. All comparator unions rely on premium caps or tiered structures—not flat monthly credits—to manage cost exposure. Furthermore, UC's proposed model lacks a cap on total employee premium increases, meaning that even with the credit, employees could face unbounded financial liability."

In 2019, the fact finder recommended against UC's proposal to cut the pension for new hires and remove healthcare premium caps. It was not the fact finding report that moved UC but thousands of UPTE members going on strike. Click here to RSVPfor our webinar on Tuesday, July 22nd at noon to hear more about the next steps in our fight!

Research and Development Engineers (RDEs) are among some of UPTE’s newest members across the state—and they’re already wracking up some major wins through their newfound collective strength!

Shortly after joining UPTE, UCSD shifted RDEs to exempt overtime status, removing a vital form of pay that they had been receiving. These new members were eager to fight back—they put their heads together, then called for a meeting with Labor Relations to make their case. UCSD agreed to provide equity adjustments for impacted RDEs, resulting in salary increases of $10,000+ per person to account for average overtime hours.

But that’s not all—when four RDEs were wrongfully laid off and treated as if they were non-union, UPTE members once again sprang into action. Together, we alerted Labor Relations that these workers were now UPTE-represented, submitted an RFI, and met with UC leadership. As a result of our efforts, all four layoffs were rescinded.

With UC experiencing a crisis of leadership, these victories make all the more apparent the power we have together in our union.

Short-staffing, weekend shifts, missed meals and bathroom breaks, and now mandatory overtime? If it were up to UC Irvine management, this would have been the reality for clinical laboratory scientists at UC Irvine. There was just one thing missing from their calculus—the collective power UPTE members have in our union.

When workers got the notice announcing that management was asserting the right to implement mandatory overtime, forcing these people into unexpected 10-12 hour shifts, we said no way. UC’s justification? That people were taking too much sick time. What did they expect after months of working people ragged due to inadequate staffing?

The stakes are high. When people are overworked and understaffed, mistakes happen—and not small, routine mistakes, but potentially a patient receiving the wrong kidney or something similarly serious and potentially life-threatening. 

UPTE members immediately got organized. We circulated a petition in our laboratory which garnered overwhelming support and outlined the dangerous risks for patients and the tremendous personal toll that these policies were having on workers.

For the past year, the leadership of one of the studies in the Division of HIV, Infectious Disease, and Global Medicine had been extremely hostile towards clinical research coordinators.

Despite a heavy workload for the team, management continued to invest in the expansion of the managerial team rather than investing in more CRCs. Moreover, the direct CRC supervisor had no knowledge of the workflow of the team, did not contribute to study enrollment or study visits, and overall seemed to have a superfluous role other than to micromanage the team’s work. 

The final straw for the team came when NIH funding cuts began to affect the team, and the management team opted to lay off the most senior team member rather than the manager.

In response to this situation, members of multiple teams across the Division of HIV, as well as Ward 86 Social Workers and wet lab workers, marched on their boss to push back, delivering a petition with overwhelming support and highlighting issues on the team.

We demanded a labor management meeting to discuss the situation and that same day, a Labor and Employee Relations representative got in touch with us to schedule the meeting.

One of my worst fears came true earlier this year. UC laid me off from my job as a systems administrator out of the blue, leaving my wife and me scrambling. It was a complete shock—I was going to lose my job of twenty-plus years in two months. What about our kids? Our mortgage? Food, healthcare, retirement?

Fortunately, that's not the end of my story. As soon as I got my layoff notice, I contacted my organizer. We began fighting my layoff immediately, and eventually, we won. After months of bracing for the worst, I was back to work just weeks after my "final" day. This is the power of being willing and able to stand up against unjust decisions in the workplace. This is the power of having and enforcing a strong contract with layoff protections. This is the power of our union.

UC's reasoning for my layoff was budget concerns. The funding sources for our department were either being held up somewhere or had been cut at the federal level. Yet, in the months-long stretch between when I received my layoff notice and my last day, I found out that both funding sources were reinstated.

Crisis over, right? Wrong. UC was still planning to lay me off. Without UPTE, I would have lost my job without recourse, even though I knew there was no logic behind the decision.

As an Animal Health Technician 3 at UC Davis’ Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH)—ranked the country’s top animal hospital—I am proud of the world‑class care our teams strive to provide. Yet you and I both know reputation alone doesn’t keep patients safe. Regional specialty and emergency clinics now pay up to $15 more per hour than UC Davis, and chronic understaffing means two techs can be responsible for more than sixty ICU patients. Emergencies are turned away, preventable tragedies occur, and the stress is driving talented colleagues out the door.

Sound familiar? Whether you’re at UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, UC Riverside, or any other campus‑based clinic, many of us face the same retention, recruitment, and workload crises. That’s why I’m writing to share what we achieved together in Davis last week.

On Tuesday, July 29, animal health technicians, animal technologists, and other UPTE-represented workers at UC Davis joined an informational picket outside the School of Veterinary Medicine to demand safe staffing.

Media response was immediate: FOX40, The Sacramento Bee, The Davis Enterprise, and others amplified our call that safe staffing saves animal lives.

The Medi-Cal Behavioral Health Student Loan Repayment Program is a state-run program designed to support behavioral health professionals with student loan debt. This loan repayment program is only for behavioral health professionals with educational debt who commit to serving two to four years in Medi-Cal safety net settings such as FQHCs, Community Mental Health Centers, Rural Health Clinics, or hospitals/behavioral health sites with 40%+ Medicaid/uninsured population. Applications are due by August 15, 2025, at 3:00 p.m.

Eligible applicants include licensed prescribing and non-prescribing practitioners, associate-level pre-licensure providers, and non-licensed professionals, and they must provide qualifying services under the California Medicaid State Plan. 

Please note that this program is administered entirely by the State of California, not UPTE. Our role is simply to share this opportunity with you. UPTE is not involved in application decisions, approvals, or enforcement of the program's requirements. If you have questions about the program or your eligibility, we encourage you to contact the state directly through the program's website.

UPTE met with UC on July 8 and 9, where UC provided "a new package of proposals" that includes no raises in 2028, no limits on increases to healthcare costs, no increased time off, and no right to vacant positions prior to layoff.

The most meaningful improvement was UC agreeing to UPTE's proposal to expand preferential rehire rights from just someone's home campus (e.g., UCSF) to all UC campuses and extend recall and rehire rights for HX unit members to three years for those with more than ten years of service (matching the RX & TX bargaining units). However, UC proposed reducing recall and rehire rights for those at Berkeley Lab (LBNL) from three years to one year, without providing an explanation.

Check out a summary of UPTE's proposals compared to UC's here.

This is all two months after our last bargaining session, demonstrating that UC is still not taking the ongoing crisis of recruitment and retention seriously. We have now missed a step increase and an across-the-board raise due to UC's stalling and unfair labor practices.

As UC sows confusion and misinformation about supposed 'financial constraints' while spending tens of billions on expansion and new construction, it is more important than ever that we hold the line on these issues.

On June 23rd, UC San Diego Health announced the layoff of 230 employees, including a handful of UPTE-represented workers. Immediately following the announcement, UPTE sprang into action.

With little notice, over 200 members attended an emergency meeting in La Jolla and received widespread media coverage that made it clear to UCSD leadership that UPTE members would not sit by quietly. UPTE workplace and unit representatives talked to their coworkers and discussed a strike if UCSD refused to work with us.

Thanks to our powerful presence in the past three strikes, UCSD recognized our strength and has committed to resolving a majority of the UPTE layoffs. We are continuing to fight every layoff and will not stop until every option has been exhausted.

As a result of this progress, UPTE will not be striking on July 22nd. We stand in solidarity with AFSCME in their fight against layoffs and ask all members to show support by wearing solidarity stickers and joining their picket lines during breaks. AFSCME was hit with 103 layoffs, roles essential to hospital operations and patient care, and we will stand beside them in their fight.

As you may have heard, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco announced significant, hospital-wide layoffs last week, with top hospital leadership demanding cuts of 1.5% and 1% of payroll across the board.

Though these cuts were supposedly due to financial necessity, we know that these hospitals are sitting on billions of dollars in reserves—and that these layoffs are likely related to a desire to best position the hospitals to finance even further expansion. UCSF and UC San Diego each have ongoing and planned capital expansion projects totaling more than $10 billion.

Laying off frontline staff to finance expansion projects, amidst a well-documented crisis of short staffing, is unacceptable and puts patient care, research, and education at risk.

That's why UPTE's Unit Representatives at both campuses sprang into action, calling emergency meetings and organizing mass meetings to protest the layoffs, and joining pickets in solidarity with AFSCME and CNA workers who are also facing layoffs. UPTE members spoke to the press about the impacts of layoffs on patient care and operations, garnering important coverage across the state, including in the San Francisco Chronicle and 10News – ABC San Diego KGTV.

Thanks to our quick response, some layoffs have already been rescinded, and we are continuing to build pressure to rescind the rest.

On, Tuesday, July 8, UPTE members and allies rallied outside the School of Social Ecology to warn UC Irvine administrators that cutting the very people who keep classrooms, laboratories, and clinics running hurts everyone—students, faculty, and the broader public alike.

UC’s public mission is to educate the next generation, drive groundbreaking research, and serve our communities. When UC shows the last remaining help-desk technician in the School of Social Ecology the door, that mission grinds to a halt:

• Students lose a lifeline. Without prompt tech support, laptops remain unconfigured and vital software goes uninstalled, threatening first-week instruction and derailing senior capstone projects.

• Faculty research stalls. Broken lab computers delay grant-funded experiments and slow the discoveries that improve our communities’ health, environment, and economy.

• Community partnerships suffer. Agencies that depend on timely data analysis and research collaborations can’t proceed when equipment sits idle.

• Security risks multiply. Devices piled up in an unsecured office violate UC information-security standards, putting sensitive data at risk.

Tuesday, July 8, and Wednesday, July 9, will be our 13th bargaining session, and UC is refusing to provide a bargaining location at either UC Berkeley or UC San Francisco. We are looking into alternative locations in the Bay Area.

After more than a year of bargaining, why is UC not doing its part to reach a fair agreement that addresses the recruitment and retention crisis?

The most recent state budget has restored UC's expected fundingcompletely—and thus far, no major federal funding cuts have been made. Yet UC continues to use uncertainty as an excuse to dig in their heels on the same unfair proposals they made a year ago.

We hope that incoming UC President James B. Milliken will recognize that our demands are reasonable and that now is the time to settle a contract that will end the recruitment and retention crisis.

Under President Milliken's leadership at the City University of New York, workers started their careers with eight more days off per year (sick, vacation, and holidays combined) than UPTE members do, and have 15 more days off per year than we do after ten years of service. They also receive up to four days of bereavement leave per year, which does not count against their sick leave accruals.

However, UC has thus far refused any increase in paid time off—even though other UC employees already receive up to nine days more off per year than we do.

Over the past two weeks, UPTE members have been mobilizing to protect our patients, students, and the communities we serve. UCLA members mobilized to provide security for undocumented students, also known as DREAMers, during graduation. Meanwhile, UC Irvine members held an emergency town hall in response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) staging at one of UC's new hospitals. Additionally, members across the state joined "No Kings" protests on Saturday.

As ICE raids continue to threaten our workplaces and communities, we want to make sure you know your rights so that you can protect your co-workers, friends, students, patients, and family.

Here is a list of immigration resources compiled by the UCLA Labor Center, including regional emergency hotlines.

Please reach out to your UPTE Organizer or Unit Representative immediately if you are aware of ICE activity that may pose a threat to your co-workers or those who depend on us.

We are proud to see our fellow UPTE members stand together and show the courage to advocate for others in this moment.

In the labor movement, we often talk about the importance of solidarity: that an injury to one worker is an injury to all workers.

We have built incredible power and solidarity within our union and with other UC workers as we have fought to reset UC's priorities. 

We will stay true to those values as the federal government terrorizes our communities and assaults union leaders like SEIU California and United Service Workers West President David Huerta, who stand with them.

What message will we send if we do not stand up and speak out when they attack our immigrant union siblings, family members, and neighbors?

This is not about Democrats and Republicans: this is about workers sending a message to every politician that we have one another's backs—that we will not allow other workers to be silenced or targeted for speaking out. 

This is about recognizing that immigrants are not the reason that working people are struggling: it is the billionaires who support politicians from both parties.

In 2013 and 2019, AFSCME, CNA, and UPTE stuck together and struck together to force UC to back down on its plans to force our newly-hired members to work five years longer for the same pension benefits as current employees. 

The last few years have seen UC pass increasing portions of healthcare costs onto non-union workers—which is why UPTE members pay up to $224 less per month.

Now, UC wants to remove the caps and impose up to $150/month for specialty pharmaceuticals.

That's why an even broader coalition of UC unions is saying "hell no!" to UC's attempts to push healthcare costs onto workers.

Click here to sign the petition and let UC know you're going to stand with our AFSCME, AFT, CNA, SEIU-CIR, Teamsters, and UAW colleagues to protect affordable healthcare at UC.

UC has yet to propose bargaining dates for our next session, after saying they were unavailable for the dates that UPTE proposed in early June.

UC may not be showing urgency to get bargaining done, but we feel the urgency every day that the recruitment and retention crisis worsens—and need to use that to keep our co-workers engaged.

As we prepare to keep building pressure through the next phase of our contract campaign, we continue to win fights at the departmental level thanks to the power we have continued to build over the past three years.

Earlier this month, 22 UC Davis Social Workers at Jail Psychological Services (JPS), serving two jails in Sacramento, won a multi-year fight for fair re-classification with the support of UC Davis Co-Chair and Unit Representative Sonya Mogilner.

Lack of career progression contributes to an 80% annual turnover rate at JPS. This is a major victory over UC's pattern of under-classifying healthcare workers who treat vulnerable patient populations.

This year, University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) will have a joint election process to elect two separate delegations, with one to attend the UPTE Convention and the other to attend the Communications Workers of America (CWA) National Convention.

All statewide members in good standing will be eligible to vote in the CWA Delegate Election. For chapters that will not have a contested UPTE delegate election, UPTE members will be asked only to vote for the CWA Convention delegates. This election will be held electronically and managed by ElectionBuddy.

The voting period will open on Monday, June 2, and close on Monday, June 9, 2025.

If you cannot vote online or access email, you may email your request for a mail-in ballot to elections@upte.org by Friday, May 30, 2025.

ElectionBuddy will share voting instructions and ballots via email on the morning of June 2.

It was incredible to see thousands of UPTE members striking in response to UC's illegal hiring freeze on May Day. We marched alongside hundreds of others from unions and community groups protesting attacks on workers' rights. As our numbers and support grow strike after strike, UC knows that we are not backing down in our fight for our patients, research, and students.

Click below for some highlights of our great press coverage:

• Labor Notes: May Day Rallies Confront Billionaire Assaults

• Sacramento Bee: UC workers strike over hiring freeze but plan to return to bargaining table

• KQED: Bay Area Workers Defend Labor, Protest Trump on May Day

• KPBS: UC San Diego Health workers strike on International Workers' Day

In July, we will miss our first across-the-board increase. How many more of our colleagues will leave if we allow UC to continue to drag out these negotiations?

Our patients, our research, and our students are counting on us to keep up the fight.

UPTE will be striking at all UC locations on Thursday, May 1, 2025 in response to UC's unfair labor practices. Learn more at upte.org/ucstrike.

On March 19, UC publicly announced a hiring freeze and has since implemented it at campuses without providing UPTE notice, let alone an opportunity to bargain over the freeze or its effects on our members—as it is legally required to do now that our contracts have expired.

Some campuses even apply the freeze to decisions about existing employees, such as reclassifications, promotions, equity increases, and conversion of term-limited employees to career employees.

After UPTE submitted a cease and desist and demand to bargain, the University explicitly refused to undo the hiring freeze so we could bargain. UC has also committed additional unfair practices like denying pension credit to workers at the hospitals it has acquired without bargaining, leaving these new workers behind, even as UC expands its market share. 

This is all despite UC's holding more than $26 billion in liquid capital and a judge issuing a permanent stay on threatened across-the-board cuts to indirect cost reimbursements for research grants.

UPTE has agreed to return to the bargaining table on Thursday, May 8, and Friday, May 9, 2025, after receiving an improved proposal from UC on reclassification via email.

In its new proposal, UC has agreed to UPTE's proposal for an initial response to reclassification requests within ninety days, a significant improvement from having no timeline in our current contract and UC's initial proposal of 210 days. However, the University has not agreed to address the lack of clear and objective criteria or an enforceable appeals process.

Now, we need to keep up the pressure to let UC know we won't back down: UC needs to offer solutions to the staffing crisis, bargain in good faith, and end its unfair labor practices. RSVP for our May 1 ULP strike against UC’s unlawful hiring freeze today at upte.org/ucstrike.