Members at UC Davis Health have been busy! Nuclear Medicine Technologists recently won equity increases ranging between 6% and 21% and now, workers in the rehabilitation department are standing up for themselves, too.

"Being able to convince local leadership to support us with ELR and UCOP was helpful. We reworked the job series to make sure that the Sr. Nuclear Med Tech title would be used to recognize people who have gone above and beyond to obtain different licenses, while ensuring that everyone received a minimum 6% pay increase ranging up to 21% based on the licenses they currently hold. People really feel like they have been heard and the fact that they acknowledged that we have been short-staffed for some time helps us all feel valued," said Heather Hunt, a Nuclear Medicine Technologist at UC Davis Health.

"We had a few meetings amongst ourselves as staff and people were really fired up and ready to mobilize when they heard about what others across the UC system were doing. We tried going through all the 'proper channels' but had no luck, so we decided to go for it and march on our boss," said Anastasia Vourakis, a Physical Therapist at UC Davis. "We were inspired by the way our colleagues at UC San Diego and UC San Francisco got organized and fought back against unfair situations. Now, the senior leadership has committed to sit down with us to talk through our issues and to support our efforts to fix them."

UPTE members at Mt. San Jacinto College (MSJC) have been in contract negotiations for the last several months, and have been calling the college out on their misguided priorities and unfair proposals. These adjunct faculty members teach a majority of the college's classes, and members are still fighting over crucial priorities. 

Negotiations are about so much more than numbers in a budget, as UPTE member and adjunct professor in the music department Emily Collins can tell you. The stakes are always high in bargaining but they're higher than ever for Emily, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. Emily doesn't receive health insurance through her job.

"After my diagnosis, I had to go through the process of qualifying for Medi-Cal because I wasn't earning money during the summer months. If I had health insurance, I could have begun my treatment sooner. Instead, I had to wait for Medi-Cal to process everything, which in turn meant a delay in my treatment. My oncologist said that if I had waited a week or so longer, my cancer could have spread to other parts of my body. That's really scary to think about. This is my life we're talking about, and I have children and a family," said Emily. "I just think about how many other adjuncts are potentially out there skipping physicals or putting off medical care because they can't afford it. It shouldn't be this way. When our personal health and well-being is such a low priority for our employer, something has to change. I hope management will realize this, and respond accordingly at the bargaining table.”

During a town hall last month, we took a dive into the finances of the University of California and evaluated one of their favorite excuses for not addressing workplace issues—that they simply don't have the money. This couldn't be farther from the truth. The bottom line is that UC has the money to invest in the dedicated healthcare, research, and technical employees who tirelessly carry out its mission. You can click here to see a recording of the town hall.

We're in a consequential moment for working people. Workers at UPS just won a historic contract, autoworkers are preparing to strike the big three, writers and actors continue a joint strike, and organizing continues across the country at non-union employers like Starbucks. New polling released by the AFL-CIO this month shows that 71% of Americans support unions, 88% of those under 30 view unions favorably, and 75% support striking workers.

This sort of pro-worker movement hasn't been seen in generations and we can't afford to let it pass us by. The winds of change are blowing in our favor—but only if we're prepared to rise to the occasion.

One of UC's favorite union-busting tactics in recent years has been to lure members out of union classifications and into newly-created or rarely used nonunion positions, sometimes offering a little more pay along with the new title. This practice, while seemingly innocuous on an individual level, can have catastrophic consequences for us all over time.

At UC San Diego, a Dietitian 4 position has come into greater use in recent years, originally packaged as a promotion to people who were offered the role. Unlike the rest of the dietitian job series, however, this title was typically reserved for people with more experience and higher-level responsibilities. When UPTE Unit Representative and Dietitian 2 Samantha Warsh began investigating, she discovered that people in this new title weren't actually doing that higher-level work, raising questions about the classification and its use.

"I noticed more and more dietitians being moved out of represented positions and into the nonunion Dietitian 4 title. Management is often not totally upfront with people about what moving into a nonunion title can mean. This happened a few years ago when pharmacists at a few places including UCSF and UCSD were moved into a nonunion Pharmacy Specialist 5 title and given a small pay bump," Sam recalled. "But management didn't tell the pharmacists that the new title meant losing out on the UPTE pension tier, which means having to work an additional five years before retirement. That trade-off pales in comparison to a small increase in pay."

Nominations will be accepted for the offices of President, Vice President, Executive Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer, Executive Board members representing each UPTE Chapter, and Chairs or Co-Chairs of each UPTE Chapter. All positions will serve a term of three years.

Members in good standing currently employed in UPTE's jurisdiction may be nominated for UPTE Officer or Executive Board Representative for the Chapter in which they are employed. Nominees for Chair or Co-Chair must be eligible members in good standing, as defined in the UPTE Constitution in Article IV, Article VI, and Appendix A. A member may self-nominate. Nominations are subject to confirmation by the Election Committee. Nominations will be accepted beginning August 30, 2023, and must be received no later than 11:59 PM PDT September 14, 2023.

Each nomination should include the name of the nominee, the position nominated for, campus, job title, and a candidate statement including prior Union involvement, name of nominator. Submit nominations by email (elections@upte.org). Click here to learn more.

On Saturday, August 12th, UPTE was proud to join striking UNITE HERE Local 11 hotel workers and our allies to rally outside the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica. Thousands of workers at 46 hotels across LA and Orange Counties have hit the picket lines in the last month in the largest hotel strike and boycott in California history.

UNITE HERE members have also been on strike at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott, which is owned by the University of California Retirement Systen (UCRS). Workers there have been repeatedly assaulted, threatened, and had their personal property destroyed. The week prior to the picket, John Tesar, the celebrity chef behind the Laguna Cliffs' Knife Modern Steak restaurant, approached striking workers and broke a drum one of the workers was holding before cursing and hurling insults at the UNITE HERE members.

"Realizing that our retirement fund and, in a roundabout way, our employer share responsibility for this shameful situation really underscored the importance of us joining this picket. UC should not be associated with the horrific violence and intimidation tactics these workers have faced," said Ursula Quinn, UPTE Systemwide Vice President and Occupational Therapist at UCLA. "We take pride in our pension and have fought to protect it. We understand that it's invested so that it grows over time but our benefit should not be at the cost of our follow workers. We want to be able to say this is an institution that we are proud to be affiliated with. If the UC Retirement System is going to tolerate this behavior at a property that they own, how can we trust that UC won't sink to these lows in their dealings with their own workers?"

Congratulations to rehabilitation specialists and clinical lab scientists at UCSD, who recently mobilized as a union to fight for and win huge new equity adjustments to ensure their units are safely staffed! Rehabilitation specialists won a 12% increase to bring them up to a more fair market wage, while our colleagues in clinical lab scientists secured 6% equity increases.

"For months, we have been pushing the administration at UCSD hospitals to take action to address understaffing. UPTE members working in healthcare settings are instrumental in the delivery of patient care. Yet like many others, we're underpaid compared to peers at other nearby hospitals," said Lea Roltsch, a speech-language pathologist at UCSD and unit representative with UPTE. "Our current market equity raise is much-needed progress, but the fight has only begun. While we are excited about these increases, UCSD still needs to further improve their compensation across the board to remain competitive and ensure adequate staffing. Staff also deserve backpay to account for the university's tardiness in making this situation right."

In both instances, we won because we proved to management that we had a strong and united membership who were ready and willing to fight for what we need and deserve for our contributions to safe patient care and the mission of UC. When we fight, we win!

Across the state, our Unit and Workplace Representatives have been hosting mass meetings and social events to share the UC bargaining survey we launched last month. Hundreds of members have already ranked priorities including better work-life balance, improved staffing, job security, fairer compensation, career development, and more. That input and active participation are crucial for us to continue building a robust, effective, and member-led union.

And it can be fun, too! At UC Berkeley last week, members set up a table on campus with free boba tea for members who wanted to stop by, complete a bargaining survey or talk to other members about their issues and priorities.

"We want to go into bargaining knowing exactly what's most important to everyone, so we can fight for a contract that represents what we all need from UC," said Jamie Gardner, a unit rep with UPTE who works at UCB's Innovative Genomics Institute as a staff research associate. "In the labs, we're hearing that a lot of people are misclassified--being kept at a lower title & pay grade than they deserve based on the actual work they do. Lab techs manage workplace hazards the UC regents only see in movies—liquid nitrogen burns, exciting new carcinogens, magnets that can rip you apart. And a lot of people are effectively taking a pay cut to work at UC because we care about doing science in the public interest. The university makes money off of our work, by taking a cut from every grant. But the research can't get done without us...so we deserve a share of the proceeds."

On July 20, UCSF campus social workers marched on our department leadership to deliver a petition and draw attention to the growing turnover and inequity that is impacting services and the vulnerable clients who depend on us. Our divisions serve San Francisco's most marginalized identities–engaging clients across categories of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, country of origin, and class who are often excluded or underserved by other systems of care. Inadequate compensation for these social workers only deepens the disparities in services that these clients receive.

"A lot of my colleagues have to work second or even third jobs just to be able to afford to stay here and keep doing this work. We do what we do because we care about our clients, we love the work, and we want to be able to keep doing this. We just want to be able to be here for our clients and also have it be stable," said David, a clinical social worker who has worked at UCSF for nearly ten years.

Sometimes, a social worker is the only person in someone's life who they can trust. Retaining our exceptional staff is not a luxury but a necessity. When UCSF doesn't retain staff, or when workers are holding down multiple jobs just to get by, it's our clients who ultimately suffer—and the people we serve often belong to San Francisco's most vulnerable communities.

UPTE members at Scripps Institution of Oceanography conduct and support vital research aimed at better understanding our oceans and our climate's health. These members work in a variety of important roles, including as staff research associates, mechanicians, technicians, and more. Without them, the essential work that Scripps does to understand and protect the planet, as well as find solutions to environmental challenges, would not be possible.

For many members, this work requires extensive travel, time away from home, and time at sea working in some of the world's most extreme environments. Some members regularly spend as much as six months out of the year away from home, but unfortunately they are not compensated fairly for this time. Members are asked to work seven days a week for months at a time. The weekends they work through are lost. For members to get the rest needed at the end of such a long assignment, they must use their vacation leave benefits.

"We need to be able to hang on to quality technicians. Our job out on the ships is to make sure everybody's being safe so the more turnover we have, the less safe we are out at sea. On top of that, the people who stick around end up having to pick up the slack of having a group that's constantly being trained," said Josh Manger, a Marine Research Technician at Scripps. "We need to reach an agreement on these policy changes so we can keep good technicians around and maintain a high level of safety aboard our ships."

Like so many members across the state, UPTE members at the William R. Pritchard Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (VMTH) at UC Davis have been calling on management to address a number issues including high levels of turnover, slow hiring processes, inequitable salaries, and the need for weekend and holiday pay differentials to better incentivize filling these shifts. All of these problems affect the standard of care people expect when they bring their animal for care.

VMTH is the largest veterinary school in the country, and UPTE members there are on the cutting edge of educational, research, clinical service, and public service programs focused on the health of animals as well as related human health concerns, such as public health. For staff, the work is a labor of love—but that isn't an excuse for management to take advantage of their dedication.

"I got into veterinary medicine because I love animals and I want to help these little guys who can't speak for themselves," said Cheyenne Dutton, an Animal Health Technician. "The animals we care for deserve the best care possible and that's why so many of us stick around to try and improve things here. It really feels like management takes advantage of our love for this work, though."

UPTE's 31st Convention took place on June 10 & 11. It was a powerful gathering of 100 leaders from across the state who spent two days discussing how we continue building a more powerful union.

We heard inspiring speeches, attended workshops to share knowledge and sharpen our skills, and voted as a body of delegates to pass a number of resolutions and amendments to UPTE’s constitution.

Check out our convention recap to see photos, learn about the governance proposals we voted on, and watch videos of our speakers

Click to read the full story from the San Diego Union-Tribune

On June 2, a report outlining dysfunction at UC San Diego Health's Moores Cancer Center (MCC) was published in The Cancer Letter and later followed by additional coverage from the San Diego Union-Tribune. The litany of issues that ultimately led to high-profile resignations and departures amongst top leaders at Moores Cancer Center have been well-documented, but little has been said of the impact that mistreatment of staff have had on the people doing the day-to-day work of the cancer center.

Research coordinators in the Clinical Trials Office at MCC are now speaking out about the retention crisis among frontline staff.

"Even Dr. John Carethers, UCSD vice chancellor for health sciences, has admitted that turnover is an issue at Moores Cancer Center, but thus far nobody is talking about why this turnover is occurring. This shouldn't be complicated for them to figure out—when MCC leadership systemically exploits and disenfranchises the people actually doing the work, it leads to low morale and turnover," said Alexis Oberg, a Clinical Research Coordinator Assistant at MCC.

Across the University of California—on campuses, in our hospitals, and beyond—management has grown increasingly stubborn and unwilling to listen to the needs of frontline workers. UC has failed to invest in maintaining adequate staffing levels and compensation needed to retain a skilled workforce, but workers at UC medical centers in Irvine and San Diego are fighting back.

At UC Irvine Health, this is widely felt among occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, and physical therapists. On June 29, dozens of those same workers hosted an informational picket outside the hospital to protest management's lack of urgency in addressing the growing staffing crisis.

”We are out here asking for respect from UCI and from management. We are fighting burnout and staff turnout that doesn't let us give the level of care we'd like to for each patient," said Adrianna Olch, an Occupational Therapist at UC Irvine. "We are asking for better staffing, we are asking to be respected, and we are asking be allowed to provide the best care that we can."

With negotiations still ongoing, members at Mt. San Jacinto College were excited to recently ratify a tentative agreement for a 10.5% retroactive raise for associate faculty for the 2022-23 academic year. Workers have been calling the college out on their misguided priorities and unfair proposals, even as management's bargaining team has claimed "they are not in the financial position to provide us with a fair contract."

Despite the recent TA on retroactive pay, we still have some outstanding and key demands regarding future raises and longevity step increases, paid office hours, seniority rights, and healthcare. Members also want to strengthen our existing contract language around union rights and the grievance process. 

"The district has signaled some willingness to move toward us on most of these issues, but we will need to keeping fighting in order to hold the district to their word. The rights and benefits above are crucial to improving the quality of life of Associate Faculty, and members are prepared to keep up our momentum, should the district's bargainers continue to attempt to delay, frustrate, and discourage the process," said Cynthia Rojas, an Associate Faculty member in the Health Sciences Department.

On May 2, over 30 UCSF physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists delivered a petition to Maurine Coco, Director of Rehabilitation Services, demanding weekend pay differentials, adequate staffing, and pay equity.

"In May, our rehab team at UCSF came together as a group to write and present a letter to management requesting action to address low staffing, weekend and holiday differentials, internal equity reviews, and optimal scheduling practices. We had approximately 30 staff members come together in solidarity to present the letter. We are awaiting collaboration from management to put into action the change we want to see," said Giselle Kurywchak, a senior physical therapist in Parnassus Inpatient Rehabilitative Services.

Management has already responded to some of the workers' concerns by raising the wage scales for some occupational therapist and speech-language pathologist job classifications, which were underpaid compared to physical therapists and the more senior classifications within their professions. Rehab therapists will be meeting with their management in mid-July to insist on pay equity for all classifications in the department, as well as weekend pay differentials to address staffing shortages.

On June 13, UPTE members were proud to once again join striking members of the Writers Guild of America on their picket line to show our solidarity. 

"Striking is a major source of our power. It's the cornerstone of the old labor saying that, ‘the boss needs us, not the other way around.’ It's a recognition of the principle that without workers, no workplace can function—including corporations, universities, hospitals, and television and film production companies," said Carole Netter, UPTE Treasurer and member from UCLA.

Carole continued, saying, "I probably don't need to comment on the insane corporate pay packages of these studio executives. UPTE applauds WGA's innovative efforts to oppose executive compensation plans while contract bargaining is happening. At UC, we know something about out of whack compensation packages. One of our very own chancellors just got a $500,000 raise in April, all the while studies have shown over 20% of students are skipping meals and going hungry."

It shouldn't be a surprise that the top results in our Contract Priorities Campaign were higher wages, more time off, and improved career development.

Inflation has been hitting us hard for 2 years, on top of housing prices and rents that have spiraled out of control. Too many of us lack clear pathways to higher-paying titles, have reached the top step too early in our career, or have only non-union titles to move into. This forces us to choose between career advancement and guaranteed raises, job security, and even retirement benefits.

On top of this, too many of our departments are short-staffed, making it hard to take much-needed vacations and other time-off. For exempt/salaried workers, short-staffing often leads to working well above 40 hours a week with no additional compensation. Even for those of us who "only" work 40 hours, increased workload and pressure to work non-stop through breaks or lunches takes its toll, especially after the pressures of the COVID pandemic.

As UC continues to drag its feet at the bargaining table, behavioral health clinicians have begun discussions with lawmakers about our employer's anti-union behavior. Assemblymember Matt Haney, who represents the eastern Assembly district in San Francisco and sits on committees including Labor and Employment, as well as Public Employment and Retirement, sent a letter in support of UPTE behavioral health clinicians to President Drake, UC Chancellors, and CEOs after meeting with us.

"The growing mental health and addiction crisis in our state affects all of us, including students at the University of California. UC behavioral health counselors and psychiatric professionals serve students seeking support for conditions such as depression, anxiety, substance misuse, trauma, stress, and even suicidality. These conditions can unexpectedly impact anyone at any time, and the pressures of higher education can exacerbate them," Assemblymember Haney said in his letter, also highlighting UC's failure to respond to our information requests, which we believe constitutes an unfair labor practice.

On Wednesday, May 24, case managers from UC Davis braved the heat in an effort to reach out to patients and community members about their growing concerns for patient safety amidst the hospital's case manager staffing crisis. UC Davis case managers signed up for lunch shifts to distribute flyers and speak with patients and family members outside the hospital to educate them about the potential dangers of not having enough case managers.

Case managers asked the community to take action by calling Christine Williams, Interim Chief Nursing and Patient Officer, and urging her to prioritize the recruitment and retention of case managers to care for our patients. Workers are also pointing out a glaring inequity in the department—case managers at UCD are paid below those at other regional hospitals, but social workers on the case management team are paid even less despite having the same responsibilities as RN case managers.