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Students and workers protested April 15 over contract negotiations, and members of another union

The Union of Professional and Technical Employees, which has nearly 10,000 members, is planning to hold a one-day strike at all nine University of California campuses today.

“We are striking on Thursday fundamentally because there is one-third of our staff that leave every year in turnover. UC salaries are typically 30 percent behind what other companies pay,” said Dominic Chan, the statewide director for UPTE.

The UC has taken precautions to make sure the strike will not interrupt students, faculty and staff at all the UC campuses and medical centers, said Noel Van Nyhuis, a spokesman for the UC Office of the President.

The UC and UPTE have been in contract negotiations since May 2004.

UPTE believes its low salary rates are affecting the quality of work its members are able to do in UC research labs.

“If one-third of our people leave every year, we are not going to have stability, which impacts us finding a cure for diseases,” Chan said. “We feel the university has neglected research.”

UPTE’s decision to strike follows the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees strike in April.

“To us, it shows that the service workers had to go out on a one-day strike to get (the UC) to move. It’s a shame that the UC only understands when we hold a strike,” Chan said.

In the past, UPTE has only held limited strikes, which took place at select campuses. This is the first system-wide strike.

Like AFSCME, UPTE is also asking for wage increases in its contract negotiations.

The UC attributes its inability to increase workers’ wages to the state budget cuts.

“There is no doubt that it has affected most people here at UC, and we are pointing to the compact with the governor to reverse that trend,” Van Nyhuis said.

Last year’s budget compact signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would provide provisions for salary increases for all UC employees.

In his May budget revision, Schwarzenegger remained faithful to that portion of the compact, but the state budget will not be approved by the state Legislature until this summer.

The most recent contract that the UC offered UPTE employees last week involves incremental wage increases each year for three years – all of which depend on the compact coming through, Van Nyhuis said.

The contract proposed to UPTE by the UC is similar to the final contract that was proposed and accepted by AFSCME, he added.

The UC believes UPTE is holding an illegal strike because UPTE has not agreed to return to the bargaining table after the UC’s repeated requests and its offer to call upon a state mediator, Van Nyhuis said.

The UC is considering filing a complaint with the California Public Employee Relations Board against UPTE’s planned strike.

Cliff Fried, the executive vice president of UPTE/Communication Workers of California and a researcher at UCLA for the past 32 years, said UPTE’s strike is legal because it has correctly filed the decision to strike with the Public Employee Relations Board.

UPTE is in a solidarity agreement with other unions representing UC workers, and it hopes that other union members will respect its picket lines, or at least join in UPTE’s rally, Fried said.

AFSCME, one of the unions in the solidarity agreement, has said it will respect UPTE’s strike.

“We are supporting them in every way we can; that means coming to their rally and taking breaks,” said Nicole Moore, an AFSCME organizer, though she said she cannot predict how many AFSCME members will participate.

UPTE has planned to begin striking at 4 a.m. at the Jules Stein Eye Institute, and will picket at locations across the UCLA campus throughout the day.

The union will be holding a rally from 12 to 1 p.m. at Meyerhoff Park.

If a contract is not reached after the strike, Fried said the union will not hesitate to pursue further action.

“We are going on until they are ready to sit down with us and come up with a reasonable, fair contract,” he said. “We’re not asking for the moon, we’re just asking for equity.”