The UC announced Friday that it will file a restraining order to prevent a planned strike by thousands of University of California patient care technical workers.
After overwhelmingly voting in support of striking, patient care technical workers from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 were set to go on strike May 21 to 22.
The UC said that the AFSCME 3299 had not explored all the options before it before deciding to strike.
“It is highly inappropriate for AFSCME to threaten services to patients as a tactic in negotiations about pension benefit reforms,” said Dwaine Duckett, vice president for systemwide human resources at UC, in a press release.
The union said that going on strike is a last resort.
Negotiations have been ongoing since the middle of last year, and the union decided to hold a member vote to strike from April 30 to May 2, which passed with 97 percent in favor of striking.
Todd Stenhouse, spokesman for the union, said the UC’s move was an example of the University’s misguided priorities.
“It’s interesting that instead of paying their workers fairly, they’re paying expensive lawyers,” Stenhouse said.
This is not the first time the UC has used legal action to prevent a strike by AFSCME. In July 2008 the UC successfully prevented an AFSCME strike because of a Superior Court ruling, which said that, because of the possible danger to public safety, the strike could not legally go on.
Compiled by Chris Hurley, Bruin contributor.