Welcome to UC's Pharmacist 5s, the newest members of our union!

Thanks to the efforts of UC pharmacists, people working in the previously nonunion Pharmacist 5 title will now be joining our union! This will give these workers greater power to leverage their unity and collective voice to address workplace concerns and ensure fair and equitable treatment—not to mention a stronger voice to advocate for their services and patients. 

Wan-Ting Huang, who recently transitioned from a staff pharmacist role at UCSD to a new position in the cardiovascular ICU as a critical care pharmacist specialist, knows first-hand why this is important. 

"I knew our department going to ramp up the specialist position and take people out of the union. So I started to gather more people, asking people to come into meetings and take an active role in our organizing. We heard a lot of stories from coworkers, and realized how much of our members' work was being moved to people in non-union titles. Those people in non-union titles were seeing their benefits impacted or were experiencing trouble getting help with workplace issues. It wasn't right, and we all felt fired up at that point," said Wan-Ting.

Wan-Ting and her colleagues had real concerns about the way the Pharmacist 5 title has historically been used over the last 10-15 years, as we've seen more and more people get hired or moved into non-union titles. When our work is done by people in non-union titles, it poses a risk to the compensation and standards we've worked so hard to win in our contract.

"Because the Pharmacist V title is not a union title, the pay is just on whatever scale that UC decides and not the pay we've won in our contract. You'd be surprised how many people go in without even negotiating or asking how much they're going to get paid, and then that person will start the job with really low pay because they didn't negotiate or do any research because they just want a job," Wan-Ting said. "And then you fast forward a few years and still have Pharmacist 5s making less than Pharmacist 2s, and not realizing that they don't get the same pension or vacation benefits. Their hourly pay is how their pension will get calculated eventually. So if you have a really low pay hourly at the beginning, yeah, you're paid less right now. Maybe you don't think it's a big deal, but the compounding effect down the line is huge."

After lots of discussions among pharmacists, we ultimately petitioned the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) to have the Pharmacist 5 title covered under the UPTE contract. Workers shared their stories, demonstrated how their responsibilities matched the job duties of union titles, gave personal testimony, and ultimately won the right to become UPTE members. 

By bringing folks into our union who share the same kinds of titles and work that we do, we expand the pool of people that management must collectively negotiate with. That ultimately gives us greater strength through increased numbers. "I'm very excited to get back to the group and now we can do some great work and then for the big contract to come next year," Wan-Ting said.