UC critical-care workers strike goes to court

Kathy Robertson
Senior Staff Writer-
Sacramento Business Journal

The University of California, its largest union and the Public Employment Relations Board and will head to Sacramento County Superior Court Tuesday morning to fight over how many critical care workers will be allowed to walk off the job at the five university medical centers Wednesday.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local No. 3299 has called a one-day unfair labor practice strike by more than 21,000 service and technical workers, including about 4,100 at UC Davis. The strike stems from what the union calls “a coordinated campaign of illegal intimidation, coercion and threats” against AFSCME workers who participated in a two-day walkout in May.

The focus of the court hearing will be how many “essential” workers will be ordered to work through the strike.
AFSCME has offered to exempt about 50 workers, including seven respiratory therapists who work at the pediatric intensive care unit at UC Davis, spokesman Todd Stenhouse said. These workers are part of a patient protection task force the unions says will monitor the strike and call in additional workers as needed.

Efforts to reach PERB general counsel Suzanne Murphy were unsuccessful, but a Nov. 17 email she wrote shows the agency in agreement with exempting only the 50 critical care workers listed.

UC issued a statement Monday saying the labor board intends to seek a temporary restraining order to limit the number of “essential” union employees “in critical health and safety roles” allowed to participate in the strike. No numbers are cited.

A similar rush to court happened in May. The court allowed the strike to go on. UC asked that at least 700 be ordered to work; PERB asked for about 400 — and the court ordered 447 to report to work through the strike.
The union has been in contentious contract negotiations with UC for more than 18 months. UC imposed its “final’ wage offer for patient care workers in July and service workers in September.

While the union says the contract fight is over unsafe staffing levels at UC and “exorbitant” pension benefits for university upper management, UC says the union refuses to sign off on pension reforms already agreed to by other bargaining units and unions.

The California Nurses Association initially expressed intent to strike in sympathy, but the union called participation off after reaching agreement Saturday with UC on a new contract for its 12,000 nurses.

[Source]: Sacramento Business Journal