VIDEO
Videographer • Editor • Spokesperson trainer
On January 22, 2025, more than fifty University Professional and Technical Employees Communications Workers of America Local 9119 (UPTE CWA 9119) members from across California gathered in Sacramento to inform state legislators about the dire state of negotiations with the University of California. UPTE met with eighty-three offices, including California State Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, the Majority Leader of the California State Assembly, as well as California State Superintendent of Public Instruction and UC Regent Tony Thurmond, who expressed their strong support for UC workers’ efforts. It was UPTE’s first official Lobby Day.
Videographer • Editor • Press spokesperson trainer
Tens of thousands of University Professional and Technical Employees CWA Local 9119 (UPTE CWA 9119) members went on an unfair labor practice strike in response to the University of California’s illegal hiring freeze on May Day. In Sacramento, UPTE members marched alongside hundreds of others from unions and community groups protesting attacks on workers’ rights. As numbers and support grow strike after strike, UC knows that we are not backing down in our fight for our patients, research, and students.
On March 19, 2025, UC publicly announced a hiring freeze and has since implemented it at campuses without providing UPTE notice, let alone an opportunity to bargain over the freeze or its effects on our members—as it is legally required to do now that our contracts have expired. Some campuses even apply the freeze to decisions about existing employees, such as reclassifications, promotions, equity increases, and conversion of term-limited employees to career employees.
Editor • Press spokesperson trainer
The call for the University of California to reset its priorities resonated across the country. First-hand stories about the impacts of UC’s unlawful behavior on patient care, research, and education earned unprecedented state and national media coverage. The February 26 to 28, 2025, unfair labor practice strike was not just the largest in the history of University Professional and Technical Employees CWA Local 9119 (UPTE CWA 9119)—it was the first time UPTE members had shut UC down statewide on our own. The sea of blue formed by thousands and thousands of UPTE members marching across the state is the strongest and clearest rebuttal of UC’s claim that “there is no crisis of recruitment and retention” and their attempt to silence frontline workers.
Videographer • Editor
Via Zoom, Bernie Sanders, the senior United States senator from Vermont, heard stories from University Professional and Technical Employees CWA Local 9119 (UPTE CWA 9119) leaders across California in a roundtable discussion to learn about UPTE’s contract campaign fight to reset the University of California’s priorities. Afterward, UPTE members from UC Los Angeles, UC Irvine, and UC Riverside showed up and out to the “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” rally with Senator Sanders at Gloria Molina Grand Park in Los Angeles.