Frustration has been building within the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, or AFSCME 3299, union among some of its UC-affiliated members after 24 months have passed since contract negotiations began.
Members of AFSCME 3299 — the UC chapter representing about 40,000 service, patient care and skilled craft workers in the UC system — have taken to AFSCME 3299’s Instagram comments to voice frustration with the union’s efforts to secure a contract with the UC system. Members specifically pointed to its struggle to secure housing benefits, which some view as unimportant relative to securing raises and insurance.
AFSCME member Hector Arrellano is a distribution technician at the UC Irvine Health Fountain Valley hospital, where he has been working for the past nine years. He mentioned that the $25,000 housing fund proposal from AFSCME 3299 is not a realistic amount of aid against rising mortgage rates,and that their most recent two-day strike had not “placed enough pressure on UC.”
“We believe AFSCME should be providing more consistent and transparent updates regarding the status of negotiations and ongoing discussions,” Arrellano said in a direct message. “Instead, frustration continues to grow as we often go long periods without hearing anything, only to see social media posts that appear unrelated to our contract or the issues we are facing.”
Jennifer West is a surgery scheduler at UC San Diego, where she has worked for almost 12 years. She similarly feels that the push for housing benefits is “very unrealistic,” and that “everybody collectively feels that this housing issue needs to be removed.”
AFSCME 3299 did not reply to a request for comment on the ongoing negotiations.
The previous contract began Jan. 31, 2020, and provided workers with an annual 3% wage increase, experience-based “step” wage increases, health care and other benefits. It expired for patient care workers July 31, 2024 and for service workers Oct. 31, 2024.
Fifteen months after negotiations began in Feb. 2024, the UC system proposed their “last, best and final offer,” according to a UC press release. This contract aimed to guarantee workers “an increase of nearly $600 million in wages” more than the last contract with AFSCME 3299. Over the course of five years, workers’ wages would be annually raised for a total 19.3% increase, among other benefits.
In its Jan. 8 press release, AFSCME 3299 posted a policy brief detailing how the UC system’s revenue had doubled between 2015 and 2025. In the press release, AFSCME 3299 Executive Director Liz Perlman alleged that the UC system “has all the resources it needs to address the affordability crisis plaguing its frontline workers and students.”
“UC has been bargaining with AFSCME for nearly two years on a successor contract and continues to work with the union toward reaching a contract agreement,” said Heather Hansen, UCOP interim senior director of labor, in an email.