On any given day, audiologists perform a wide range of work to help diagnose and treat hearing-related issues. Over time, audiologists at UC San Diego could see that low pay and high turnover rates were impacting the quality of care they could provide.

Audiologists had undeniable evidence that their compensation fell below market rates, but having facts on our side often isn't enough—they also had to show management that they were prepared to stand together until this issue was addressed. The audiologists submitted their research and proposal together as a union and ultimately, they emerged victorious, securing a 17% raise across the board.

"This increase is a clear victory for everyone. It addresses the critical issue of attracting and retaining qualified candidates, which management admits has been a pressing concern. It will make it easier to hire and keep talented audiologists, translating into better service for patients. And of course, it will make it easier for audiologists to stay at UC while also making ends meet here in San Diego," said Charles Ruby, a UCSD Audiologist.

For years, UCSF Campus social workers have been chronically underpaid compared to their counterparts at UCSF Health, despite doing similar work. Their clients are among San Francisco's most vulnerable residents, and inadequate compensation for these social workers only deepens the disparities in the services that these clients receive.

For years, workers were told that raises weren't possible. On July 20, over 30 campus social workers delivered a petition with 100+ signatures to the chair of the psychiatry department, who oversees most of these positions. On August 28, we got word that we had won the increases we've been fighting for, and Clinical Social Worker 1, 2, and 3 classifications within the Department of Psychiatry will all be moved up 7 steps on the wage scale, which amounts to a 14-15% wage increase for most people.

"For me, this fight for pay equity comes from a deep love for my work, my colleagues, and our clients. Equitable pay is crucial to keeping dedicated and skillful clinicians in the job so that our clients can receive consistent support from the social workers they have grown to trust and connect with," said Brenna Alexander, a Clinical Social Worker II at UCSF. "Just as our clients deserve high quality, compassionate care, campus clinicians deserve pay that allows us to stay present in this city and engaged with the most vulnerable folks in our community."

Nevada, along with other CWA leaders. President Biden joined them at a picket line in Michigan, marking the first time a sitting US President has ever joined a picket line.

Autoworkers are not just fighting to undo cuts that they accepted in the 2008 financial crisis; they are fighting to see the benefits of increased productivity, including a 32 hour work week with 40 hours of pay, as their employers bring in record profits.

Similarly, UPS Teamsters settled a contract that ended unfair tiers that had divided their union by leaving new hires behind. Writers may soon approve a tentative agreement, addressing industry-changing conditions brought on by streaming and AI, while actors continue fighting for a similar deal.

UC workers have fallen behind financially too, thanks to inflation and out-of-control housing prices. Despite becoming more and more productive every year while struggling through the COVID 19 pandemic, we are continually asked to do more with less: fewer staff, higher workloads, and lower pay.

When UCLA announced its "Reimagine IT" program, everyone was told they would need to reapply for their old jobs and they ominously pushed employees to accept 'severance payments' to resign their positions. Unionized IT workers immediately jumped into action.

Under UPTE's TX agreement, UCLA cannot impose changes to the working conditions of UPTE workers (such as a requirement to reapply for a job you already have) without giving the union notice and bargaining over those changes and their effects on employees. 

"When the announcement was made, there was a lot of fear from our members in ITS. It has been great to see our ability to show management that they can't just do what they want," said Max Belasco, UCLA IT worker. "That is the power we can exert when IT workers are communicating with each other, standing up for one another, and having our coworkers' backs. Unfortunately, our nonunion colleagues lack those protections and rights, making them subject to whatever unilateral decisions UCLA makes."

UPTE members are now using their rights to demand a seat at the table on how UCLA plans to 'Reimagine IT' and our jobs. 

Lalaine Rojo has spent the last ten years working at UCSF, where she is a Lab Assistant II working in the Anatomy Department. Lalaine's family immigrated to the United State from the Philippines, where she had worked previously as a company nurse at a bank. Lalaine had never been in a union before coming to UC. "In previous jobs, I saw firsthand how workplaces could be unfair or discriminatory, especially to immigrants. That experience really opened my eyes to how much of a risk it can be to try and advocate for yourself as an individual without union protections."

Given Lalaine's Bachelor of Science in Nursing and the role she has played as a caretaker for ill family members, it's no surprise that her motivation for being a leader in our union is focused on others. "Being in a union is about being there for each other. We are the union, as members, and we have to help one another. If we want to make our corner of the world a better place, it can be done. It may not always feel possible, but when you get together with others and work towards a common goal, we can win. It's always easy to find excuses not to do something, but at the end of the day you have to decide what's important to you and what you want to fight for."

Lalaine finished by reminding us that as union members, "Our biggest responsibility is to leave UCSF better than it was when we started, and to train the next generation of union leaders who will come after us and continue the fight to have a dignified standard of living."

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.