Protecting lifesaving care for Oakland kids

On July 9, UPTE organized a rally in conjunction with ParentVoices Oakland to keep major healthcare services at Children’s Hospital Oakland (CHO) where children and their families will able to access them without facing additional hurdles.

Over the past year, UCSF has moved bone marrow treatments and interventional radiology from CHO across the bay to San Francisco—creating dangerous barriers for immunocompromised children. The shift has created new barriers and risks for families whose children are battling cancer, sickle cell anemia and other serious illnesses—forcing them to travel across the Bay for care that was previously available in Oakland.

“Dozens of families who used to get care here in Oakland are being told to go back and forth across the Bay when their child's immune system is at its most fragile. These kids and families don’t need additional obstacles to being healthy and safe. We're calling on UCSF to keep specialized pediatric care in Oakland, where our community can access it,” said Paola Portillo, UPTE member and clinical social worker at CHO.

Welcome to The UPTE Update, a monthly newsletter from University Professional and Technical Employees.

Here’s what’s covered in this edition:

• UC tech workers join UPTE in historic union election

• UCSF social workers unite for workplace safety, quality care

• Athletic trainers at UCSB took action to improve work-life balance… here’s what they’ve won so far

Read and share the newsletter with your co-workers. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Twitter, and Bluesky for news and updates from your union.

A majority of 2,100 technical workers at UC have voted to join UPTE, making us the largest tech worker union in the United States with 8,400 workers in the bargaining unit.

This campaign involved hundreds of technical workers who reached out to their colleagues via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, e-mail, social media, as well as physical outreach across departments and by visiting homes of remote workers. Once the state labor board recognizes these UPTE members, it will mark a milestone for California’s public university system, the labor movement, and how technology serves the public.

The titles joining UPTE include: Application Programmers 1–3; Business Systems Analysts 1–3; Data Systems Analysts 1–2; Database Administrators 1–2; Information Systems Analysts 1–3; and Instructional Designers 1–5. They’ll win the concrete benefits of the UPTE contract, including increased pay, job security, remote work protections, healthcare premium caps, the ability to bargain over working conditions including AI, and more. 

Hundreds of other technical workers have also voiced their support for unionizing with UPTE, including the remainder of the classifications listed above. We look forward to welcoming them to UPTE soon!

Technical workers build and maintain the digital infrastructure behind patient care at UC's medical centers, power the research systems scientists across the state rely on, and design the learning tools that serve hundreds of thousands of students. 

More than 2,100 tech workers at the University of California have built majority support to join UPTE, making it the largest tech organizing drive in United States history. We’ve petitioned the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to certify our union.

These workers keep California’s public university running: they power the systems behind patient care at UC’s medical centers, support research scientists across the state rely on, and build the tools that serve hundreds of thousands of students. When they win a real voice on the job, UC serves the public better.

This victory advances a broader fight to defend and expand public healthcare, research, and education in California. Strong unions retain experienced staff, cut turnover, and hold management accountable at an institution that belongs to the public. UPTE keeps organizing: pushing every remaining non-union tech title at UC to join our union, and fighting to win the fair pay, layoff protections, affordable healthcare, and retirement benefits that keep skilled workers serving California.

This UPTE (University Professional and Technical Employees) May 2026 newsletter highlights several recent union victories and ongoing efforts. The lead story describes how we successfully reversed layoffs of eight healthcare quality improvement specialists at UCI Health by rallying media attention and threatening legal action, ultimately recovering ten total positions. A second story covers how a mental health therapist at the CAARE Center in East Sacramento, facing the sudden loss of a 20-year Medi-Cal contract, worked with UPTE to mobilize roughly 1,000 calls to Sacramento supervisors, resulting in the clinic’s funding being restored. A third story recounts how a UC Davis research engineer, improperly let go during a hiring freeze, was converted to a career position with back pay through UPTE’s contract enforcement efforts. The newsletter also notes the union broader priorities—including affordable housing, childcare, and immigrant protections—and closes with a May Day tribute to the labor movement’s history, celebrating UPTE members’ statewide actions under the banner “workers over billionaires.”

As healthcare professionals and research and technical staff at the University of California, we share a bond with everyone who has committed to caring for the sick, advocating for students, and serving the public. The murder of Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs intensive care unit nurse who committed his life to caring for veterans, strikes us deeply. There are few things more horrific than seeing a healthcare professional, moved by his duty to care for others, murdered by our own government.

UPTE stands with labor unions across the United States in denouncing the ongoing brutal attacks on immigrants and native born alike, both in Minneapolis, here in California, and across the country.

We demand justice for Alex Pretti, Renée Good, Keith Porter Jr., and others across the country whose families have been separated or shattered by federally sanctioned cruelty. We will stand with our colleagues to continue fighting not only for our patients and for science and research, but also to bring about a just and humane society, not one ruled by hate and fear.

Nearly three months after a patient stabbed and killed our coworker and UPTE member Alberto Rangel, more than two hundred UPTE members and supporters came together to deliver a clear message: UC must act to make sure this never happens again.

According to UPTE’s workplace safety survey, 90% of UCSF social workers have experienced some type of threat, assault, or intimidation on the job, whether physical, sexual, or verbal. Another 81% said they feel unsafe at work at least once a month, and many feel unsafe every day. 90% said they had reported feeling unsafe at work to management at least once.

After the rally, we brought our demands straight to UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood's office. He still has not met with us to address our demands for safety and transparency.

Workers laid out common-sense demands: stronger safety protocols, lower caseloads, adequate staffing, and an end to the two-tier system that pays campus outpatient social workers about 33% less than hospital-based coworkers, while giving them fewer resources and more strain.

We want to update you on our demands for safety and transparency at San Francisco Department of Public Health facilities and across UC San Francisco. First, we request that you complete UPTE's confidential UCSF Workplace Safety Survey to help strengthen worker- and patient-centered safety improvements. Second, we recently met with Daniel Tsai, the director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), and UC leadership to share staff feedback and clarify implementation expectations.

UPTE is launching this confidential survey to better understand how UCSF staff in outpatient behavioral health settings have faced unsafe working conditions. As we advocate for worker- and patient-centered models for safety improvements, collecting data on prior safety incidents and how management handled them will be extremely valuable. Please take a few minutes to complete the survey here.

Following direct advocacy by staff at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center's HIV Clinic at Ward 86, UPTE social workers met with DPH Director Daniel Tsai alongside UC labor leadership. Workers emphasized that safety measures in DPH settings must apply equally to all UC workers, and Director Tsai committed to change across DPH-operated sites.

This year was a huge year for UPTE, thanks to the hard work of our members, leaders, and staff across the state. We ended 2025 with a massive contract victory at the University of California after starting it with one at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. 

All of this despite the political headwinds turning strongly against public healthcare, education, and research. 

Over the course of the year, we brought more than 2,500 workers back into UPTE after UC had excluded their titles from representation for years. When we return in 2026, we will continue organizing in our workplaces: for safety protocols, for safe staffing, for fair pay, and more. 

We will also have to step up our fights with other workers to defend and expand public research, healthcare, and education.

In 2025 we fought and we won. I look forward to fighting together and winning with all of you in 2026 and beyond. I hope you relax and enjoy the winter holidays with loved ones, knowing that years of hard work have paid off. 

In Solidarity,

Dan Russell
UPTE President

I was shocked and horrified by the stabbing of a valued member, colleague, and friend, while on the job at the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. Our hearts are with the victim’s family, coworkers, and all those affected by this tragedy.

No one should have to fear for their safety at work, especially inside one of the region’s leading trauma centers. Our members have long sounded the alarm about unsafe conditions and chronic understaffing that put them at risk every day, as they serve as the social workers and behavioral health clinicians on the front lines of the city's mental health crisis.

We demand, expect, and will participate in a full and detailed investigation of this incident, and will continue to remain in close contact with hospital leadership, city officials and all relevant agencies as we seek answers and continue to fight for reliable and consistent safety protocols, adequate staffing, and the resources clinicians need to care for their patients and clients.

We will not rest until every worker can go to work knowing they will come home safely.

Nearly 12,000 members participated in our ratification vote, with 98% voting in favor of ratification. Our ratification vote means our new contract terms with the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are effective immediately.

Our new contract is an important foundation for the work we still have to do: addressing profession and department-specific issues, welcoming workers who work alongside us—but who UC has moved into non-union titles—back into our union, and preparing to take on other issues important to our members, both inside and outside of UC.

In 2025 alone, more than 2,000 non-union workers won UPTE representation—with thousands more working to win representation right now! This work is crucial to building our strength and density for future fights.

I hope we are all able to rest and enjoy the beginning of the holiday season with the security this contract provides. Congratulations to us all!

I’m an Animal Health Technician at UCSF who has faced significant financial struggles while pouring my heart into my work. At the beginning of our journey for a new contract, my goal was to show UC that their undervalued staff were so much more than just numbers on a badge—UPTE workers are the strong foundation on which patient care, research, and education are built.

That’s why I’m proud to vote YES on our tentative agreement, and why I am writing today to ask you to join me at upte.org/vote.

I’ve told my story countless times over the last many months, and I’ve seen how my experience resonates with colleagues; perhaps their family members would benefit from our neurodegenerative disease research, or maybe because they, too, were single parents attempting to make ends meet while the cost of living soared.

Our tentative agreement represents significant progress in resetting UC's priorities and making our work more sustainable. The year-to-year raises, equity pool adjustments, and our triumph on enforcing a $25 minimum across all of our job titles will be transformative for my colleagues who, like me, have long been overlooked by UC. This contract is proof positive that when we fight, we win.