Negotiations begin for new Patient Care Technical and Service contracts

This week, UC begins negotiations with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local Union 3299 (AFSCME) for new contracts for you and your patient care technical and service colleagues. We want you to know how we are approaching these negotiations and our goals and priorities.

We will offer fair proposals that reflect the critical services you provide. UC’s proposals are not designed to be a starting point but rather reasonable offers that represent our valued employees. We also plan to provide up-to-date information so that you understand what we are doing and why.

We approach all contract negotiations with the following principles: advancing UC’s mission, providing high-quality and accessible patient care, strengthening union partnerships, promoting operational excellence, building an aligned workforce, and enhancing UC’s ability to recruit and retain employees.

Our goal in these negotiations is fair contracts that honor you and the importance of your work. Our priorities include:

• Fair and competitive pay: All UC employees, at every level, deserve to be fairly compensated for their contributions. We know the cost of living in California can be challenging and we expect compensation to be a key topic in these negotiations. We are committed to finding solutions that work for everyone, and we will carefully listen to and consider all union proposals.
• Quality healthcare and retirement benefits: We know how important good benefits are to you and your family. That’s why UC offers a range of quality and family-friendly medical plans — with salary based monthly premiums to ensure access to good care for lower-paid colleagues — and employer contributions that are more generous than the State of California or the California State University system. UC also offers employees excellent retirement benefits to help you save for the future.
• Long-term stability: You deserve stability when it comes to your pay and benefits. We seek long-term contracts that include predictable annual pay increases and benefit costs to help you meet your needs.
• Respectful, good-faith and efficient negotiations: Negotiations are most successful when both sides are willing to be flexible and open to compromise. In recent years, UC has achieved good contracts with unions representing UC lecturers, nurses, police, clerical staff, graduate student workers, post-doctoral scholars and academic researchers. These agreements were the result of both sides working collaboratively to find solutions and demonstrating flexibility and a genuine willingness to compromise. We approach our negotiations with AFSCME in the same fashion.
• Communication: It is important that you have timely and factual information throughout negotiations. We will provide you with frequent updates to ensure you are always up to date.