On Monday and Tuesday, tens of thousands of University of California service and patient care workers walked off the job across California — including at UC Santa Barbara — as part of a two-day strike protesting low wages, rising healthcare costs, and what many workers described as a shocking culture of inequality inside the UC system.
“Today is not the end,” said Serafin Zamora, a groundskeeper at UCSB for more than two decades and an executive board member with AFSCME Local 3299, the union leading the walkout. “We don’t want to stop until we can get a good contract. If we don’t see a settlement, if UC doesn’t come to the table with a good offer, we want to continue pushing.”
The union — American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents about 40,000 food service workers, custodians, hospital technicians, and patient care assistants across the UC system, including around 600 at UCSB — has been in contract negotiations with the university for 22 months. Members of the California Nurses Association who work at UC hospitals also went on strike in solidarity. The key issue: affordability…