UC Berkeley News Brief
Five-day strike to end at UC campuses
BERKELEY – Union officials have announced plans to end a five-day strike at University of California campuses. In a letter to the UC Office of the President, the union representing nearly 20,000 service and patient care workers said the strike will officially conclude tomorrow (Saturday, July 19) at 12:01 a.m.
On the last day of their job action, hundreds of members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Local 3299, and their sympathizers rallied outside UC headquarters in downtown Oakland.
At UC Berkeley, around a dozen picketers remained at campus entrances and about 300 employees did not report to work. While there were some delays to construction on campus, transportation, dining and janitorial services ran at close-to-normal levels, as did scheduled classes.
AFSCME represents nearly 20,000 custodians, food service workers, bus drivers, groundskeepers, parking attendants and patient care technicians at the 10 UC campuses and five medical centers. UC has been in negotiations with AFSCME over two separate contracts since last year.
Last Friday, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Patrick Mahoney issued a temporary restraining order at the request of the Public Employment Relations Board, which issued a complaint against AFSCME for bad-faith bargaining, failing to give adequate notice of a planned strike, and for encouraging employees to participate in a strike against UC facilities even though their absence from work would clearly endanger the public's safety, particularly at the medical centers.
Despite the judge’s order, AFSCME leaders moved forward with the job action.