Strike over as UCSC trades workers ratify new contract
In separate action, graduate students announce ‘sick-out’ plans for Wednesday
SANTA CRUZ >> A weekslong strike of dozens of UC Santa Cruz trades workers ended Tuesday with a new contract and a declaration of victory by the workers’ union.
UCSC and the 49-member unit of carpenters, plumbers, electricians and others trades workers — called K7 — ratified the contract Tuesday, according to a campus message and a release from the workers’ AFSCME Local 3299 union.
Joe Baxter, a UCSC electrician and unit negotiator, said the contract was negotiated over the weekend and unanimously ratified by the members present at a Tuesday morning meeting.
“I’m just really proud of our people that we held the line and were able to get a fair and good contract,” Baxter said. “In the end, I felt like UCSC came through and gave us a fair contract.”
The four-year contract includes a 21% raise between December 2019 and October 2023, better overtime pay, and an extension of existing pension benefits to new members, according to the campus message. It also limits health care cost increases and prohibits union members from striking for the contract’s duration.
“Union members ended their strike and returned to work today,” wrote Sarah Latham, UCSC’s vice chancellor of Business and Administrative Services, in the campus message. “The campus values the hard work of its skilled tradespeople and the managers and supervisors who help to maintain our infrastructure and keep the campus safe.”
Demanding higher wages and better job security, the workers had been on strike since Jan. 6 following two years of failed contract negotiations.
In its own announcement, AFSCME Local 3299 declared victory Tuesday — calling the contract “historic.”
The unit’s “members won what UC said they would never get,” the union said.
According to the union
announcement, the K7 contract includes job security protections that would prevent the UC from contracting out work that results in layoffs or contracting work based on “financial necessity.” Those provisions were not listed in contract highlights shared by UCSC.
In a separate statement, AFSCME Local 3299 Executive Director Liz Perlman said the unit’s contract “addresses our members’ serious concerns about staffing and wage inequities for those who maintain nearly 600 buildings on campus.”
“We are committed to ensuring that the 27,000 service and patient care workers that we also represent will soon receive an equally fair contract from the university,” Perlman added.