UC Researchers Strike for Better Pay

University of California research and technical workers walked off their jobs Thursday in a one-day strike to demand better pay and stem what they say is high turnover.

Leaders of the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE-CWA Local 9119) union said that more than 3,000 of the estimated 10,000 lab assistants, computer technicians and researchers across the university system participated in the walkout. But university officials said the number of strikers was much smaller, possibly in the low hundreds.

The union wants UC to agree to a pay system tied to seniority that would guarantee annual increases of between 1 and 2 percentage points more than the cost of living increases currently proposed by the university.

The workers, some of whom work on medical research relating to AIDS and cancer, earn between $35,000 and $45,000 annually, the union said. Their contract expired in September and negotiations for a new one started a year ago.

“We’re out here to send a public message that staff turnover is unacceptable. We can’t find a cure for cancer if one-third of the people are leaving every year for the private sector,” said union director Dominic Chan.

UC spokesman Noel Van Nyhuis said the university considered the walkout illegal and would file a complaint about it with the state Public Employment Relations Board. But he added that disruptions caused by the walkout were minimal.

UC and the union representing its 7,300 service workers agreed last month on a three-year contract for janitors, cooks, groundskeepers and others. That agreement included a 3% across-the-board wage increase for each of the next two years, with a 4% raise for the third year.

The research and technical workers have been offered wage increases “similar to the kind service workers received,” Van Nyhuis said.

At a UCLA rally attended by about 200 workers, Gina Bonifacio, a 44-year-old clinical researcher, said her $41,000-a-year salary was insufficient to support a family.

“I have a house, a car and two kids,” she said. “If I was younger, I would leave too.”