AFSCME 3299, the labor union that represents service and health care workers throughout the UC campus and hospital system, announced it will enter an open-ended strike beginning May 14.<\/p>\n
The open-ended strike comes after five separate strikes and as negotiations move into their third year.<\/p>\n
In a statement, AFSCME 3299 said it has filed two Unfair Labor Practices against the university, citing an alleged raise in health care costs for members and an alleged refusal to bargain over housing benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The university\u2019s) current offer would leave us worse off than we were 10 years ago,\u201d said AFSCME executive director Liz Perlman. \u201cOur members are sleeping in their cars working at UC Berkeley. They\u2019re commuting two hours just to be able to afford to live (and to) afford a two-bedroom because they just cannot live around where all the UCs are.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Perlman, the university raised health care costs for members without bargaining, which she alleges is illegal. She says these hikes can cost AFSCME members about $100-200 per month. The average union member makes $62,000 per year.<\/p>\n
UC Office of the President spokesperson Heather Hansen disagreed with this characterization.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo address rising health care costs, UC has proposed caps of 7.5% and 5% for Kaiser and Blue & Gold medical plans, respectively,\u201d Hansen said in an email. \u201cWe have also offered significant monthly stipends to offset rising health care costs nationwide, which are not unique to California or UC. At this point, more than 16,000 AFSCME-represented UC employees pay less than $100, and about half (over 8,000) pay $0.\u201d<\/p>\n
The union additionally filed concerns alleging the university refused to negotiate housing benefits for members. Perlman cited a $5 million housing fund for UC Davis AFSCME employees she says has helped 200 people make mortgage and rent payments as a model program that the union is hoping to expand across universities.<\/p>\n
Perlman also pointed to a discrepancy in the aid that the university gives to faculty and other more prestigious positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe faculty and executives get low-interest home loans,\u201d Perlman said. \u201cThose are folks on average who make $300,000 a year. What we\u2019re asking for is just to extend similar programs to our folks. We\u2019re not trying to move in next door, but we are trying to get a little piece of the American Dream and have some basic stability in housing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hansen said an open-ended strike is unnecessary and would cause disruption for patients, students and campus operations. She reiterated that filings of unfair labor practices do not establish wrongdoings and that the university disagrees with both claims.<\/p>\n
Perlman said ASFCME\u2019s members are prepared to sacrifice.<\/p>\n
\u201c(ASFCME members are) going to be counting on their community, students and faculty, patients, other unions (and) people in the public to show up for us,\u201d Perlman said. \u201cWe\u2019ve made the university the crown jewel of the state (and) of the world in terms of public education. We are a key part of what makes (the UC system) great, and sometimes it feels like UC doesn\u2019t think that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFSCME 3299, the labor union that represents service and health care workers throughout the UC campus and hospital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[30516,31271,4108,75099,143,145,144,5247,149,8229,26885],"class_list":["post-278476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-afscme-3299","tag-heather-hansen","tag-kaiser","tag-liz-perlman","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-uc","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-uc-davis","tag-ucop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}