Nearly a week into UC strike, little bargaining progress, but support for workers grows
Thousands of UC professors, students, community activists march in San Francisco’s Chinatown neighborhood on Saturday Oct. 16, 2018. The strike is entering its next month. (Marcus Yam / Bay Area News Group)
As the largest teacher strike in California’s history enters its ninth week, the unions leading it are reporting that little progress was made in their nearly month long negotiations with the university.
The UC’s response to the strike, which began Oct. 5 with an initial call by members of the UC’s faculty, is to continue to negotiate.
“We understand that the UC and the community are continuing our discussions and we are ready to work collaboratively to address all of these concerns and achieve a resolution as quickly as possible,” UC spokeswoman Dani Simons said. “We will do so at the table and through ongoing communication with our faculty members.”
However, the strike has not been going well as of late for the unions that have been leading the strike. UC President Janet Napolitano said the university would not negotiate with any union at all. She has also said that she expects all negotiations with the unions to end by the end of the week.
UC students are now striking, but have not yet gone on strike. The reason may be because the university has still not given the students any progress on their demands for higher wages and better working and living conditions. This has continued through the week.
As of Friday, the University of California was still trying to negotiate a contract with the union representing its 2,200 administrative, clerical, technical and professional employees, which includes doctors, engineers, architects, lawyers, nurses, social workers, business school professors, administrative assistants and researchers. UC has so far been unable to reach an agreement with its clerical and professional employees. The strike has continued by the administrative workers in an effort to force Napolitano to negotiate with them.
On Friday, the Administrative Workers union and the University
