2,100 tech workers vote to join UPTE!

A majority of 2,100 technical workers at UC have voted to join UPTE, making us the largest tech worker union in the United States with 8,400 workers in the bargaining unit.

This campaign involved hundreds of technical workers who reached out to their colleagues via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, e-mail, social media, as well as physical outreach across departments and by visiting homes of remote workers. Once the state labor board recognizes these UPTE members, it will mark a milestone for California’s public university system, the labor movement, and how technology serves the public.

The titles joining UPTE include: Application Programmers 1–3; Business Systems Analysts 1–3; Data Systems Analysts 1–2; Database Administrators 1–2; Information Systems Analysts 1–3; and Instructional Designers 1–5. They’ll win the concrete benefits of the UPTE contract, including increased pay, job security, remote work protections, healthcare premium caps, the ability to bargain over working conditions including AI, and more. 

Hundreds of other technical workers have also voiced their support for unionizing with UPTE, including the remainder of the classifications listed above. We look forward to welcoming them to UPTE soon!

Technical workers build and maintain the digital infrastructure behind patient care at UC's medical centers, power the research systems scientists across the state rely on, and design the learning tools that serve hundreds of thousands of students. 

Our victory has been widely covered in the media, including by the San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, and Berkeleyside. As Business Systems Analyst Max Belasco and UPTE UC Los Angeles Chapter Co-Chair told the tech newsletter Blood in the Machine:

“The narrative in tech now is all about the unilateral power executives wield over our workplace circumstances, and I think many of us felt in the UC that creeping sense of being left out of decision making in how to implement technology for the public good... I think it’s very easy to feel siloed or removed from your coworkers in IT/tech. But that so many of us clearly feel the same way has felt so empowering and vindicating.”

Share this news with your colleagues — and if you work with any non-union technical workers, have them contact your local chapter organizer.

In solidarity,

Dan Russell
UPTE President & Chief Negotiator
Business Technology Support Analyst, UC Berkeley