Vocational Nurses, Techs Ready 30,000-Worker California Strike

An impending strike at the University of California hospital system adds to a growing list of high-profile work stoppages among healthcare employees faced with a tightening labor market and rising consumer costs.

About 42,000 workers organized with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 are set to walk off the job May 14 in an unfair labor practice strike across all 10 University of California campuses. Roughly 30,000 of them work at medical centers, laboratories, and other health facilities across the UC hospital system, the union said.

It would be the latest in a series of strikes among healthcare workers who are demanding improved staffing levels and higher wages. Earlier this year, employees at New York City hospitals and Kaiser Permanente locations in Los Angeles and Hawaii stopped working for several weeks over similar concerns.

Strikes in the healthcare and social assistance sector soared by 58% last year to 57 from 36 in 2024, though the total across all industries was down about 16%, according to annual reports from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Nearly 117,000 workers participated in the sector’s 2025 walkouts, over 150% more than 2024, the reports show.

The upticks come as tensions grow between healthcare unions and hospital systems over high turnover rates and rising costs that labor observers expect to be exacerbated as more federal healthcare cuts take effect.

“This kind of disinvestment in healthcare has been happening for a long time,” said Sorcha Brophy, assistant professor of health policy and management at Columbia University, noting that the issue has drawn greater attention since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Looming Strike

The planned ULP strike stems from the UC system unilaterally implementing a healthcare plan without bargaining and refusing to negotiate over housing benefits, the union said.

AFSCME and the university have been negotiating a labor contract since the last deal expired in 2024, the union said.

In addition to vocational nurses, medical assistants, MRI technicians, and other healthcare workers, Local 3299 represents several thousand custodians, groundskeepers, and food service employees.

The union plans to strike until a new collective bargaining agreement is reached.

Labor Contract Talks

About 13,000 union members have left the UC system since the pandemic, AFSCME said. As a result, remaining employees sometimes experience staff-to-patient ratios that are double the state’s recommendation, said Liz Perlman, the local’s executive director.

“Why are people leaving? Because they’re burnt out, because they’re short-staffed,” Perlman said. “People will stay if you actually make what they’re making something they can survive on.”

The university system said in an April 15 press release it’s offering wage increases equaling 32.3% through 2029 as well as premium caps for healthcare plans.

“These are concrete steps designed to provide both immediate financial support and long-term growth, while giving employees flexibility to address their individual needs,” Heather Hansen, a UC spokesperson, said in an April 21 e-mail.

Hansen said that AFSCME’s membership at the UC system had increased by 40% since 2021. Todd Stenhouse, a union spokesperson, attributed the membership increase to high-turnover rates throughout the UC system.

Hansen said the university system disagreed with the union’s unfair labor practice charge, and the merits of the allegations would be settled by the Public Employment Relations Board.

Understaffing Concerns

The union’s concerns over staffing levels and noncompetitive wages were a hallmark of other healthcare work stoppages earlier this year.

“These are tight labor markets, and what that means is that we’re seeing difficulty in filling jobs,” said Kosali Simon, a professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, who specializes in health policy and economics. “There’s a lot of strain being felt in these positions.”

Some of these staffing conditions can be attributed to consolidation of hospital systems in recent years, said John August, program director at Cornell’s Scheinman Institute. The UC system acquired six hospitals in 2024, which included 1,400 beds and 6,000 employees, according to a financial report from the university’s Board of Regents.

“The trend is there’s going to be about half the number of health systems in five years than there are today, and there’s about half that there were even 10 years ago,” August said.

An aging population in need of increased medical care is also leading to higher workloads and a more stressful working environment that could lead to increased turnover, he said.

“You’re seeing more and more older patients who are in for commodities and much more complex cases than you saw 10 years ago,” he added. “Those are the kinds of things that make nursing so much more difficult.”

Mounting Problem

Federal healthcare cuts are likely to intensify these labor shortages as hospitals absorb increased costs from consumers unable to pay for emergency services, labor observers said.

Last year, Republican legislators approved a nearly $1 trillion cut to Medicaid funding, and Affordable Care Act subsidies lapsed after Congress failed to pass an extension.

“In the healthcare system, when one area feels the pinch, the work just gets exported to a different part,” Brophy said.

Labor costs were the highest expenses for hospitals in 2023, accounting for about 46% of total expenditures, according to data from KFF, a health policy research firm.

The federal cuts are already starting to have political ripple effects among healthcare workers. Service Employees International Union-United Health Care Workers West last week said it gathered enough signatures to authorize a union-backed California ballot initiative for a wealth tax to offset health funding cutbacks.

AFSCME’s membership “includes healthcare workers who can no longer afford health insurance,” Perlman said at a press conference supporting the initiative.

The ballot measure “will help our hospitals and the workers who have been unfairly punished by Trump’s cruelty,” she said.