What’s the Deal?
After months of delays, skilled trades workers say UCSF is pushing toward a labor fight
After months of delays and, at times, dismissive bargaining, the folks at UC San Francisco might be entering the “find-out” phase of labor negotiations.
The skilled trades workers — including plumbers, painters, electricians, and carpenters — who maintain the university’s campuses and medical facilities say patience is running out as contract talks stall.
San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council Secretary–Treasurer Rudy Gonzalez has participated in these specific talks before. He said he’s never seen the UCSF negotiators this disorganized and unprepared. They’re conducting themselves in a way, he said, “that is a recipe for a dispute.”
“They have mistaken our kindness for weakness,” Gonzalez said. “They’re going to look back on these negotiations, and, I think, regret the way they’ve approached them.”
At the center of the dispute is the trades’ request that their workers receive wages tied to 90% of San Francisco’s prevailing wage rates. This is not an unprecedented move, as similar trades workers at UC Berkeley already secured a contract several years ago that tied their wages to 90% of the prevailing wage in Alameda County.
Without comparable wages, UCSF risks losing experienced workers to other employers, including UC Berkeley itself. Workers maintaining UCSF facilities hold the same certifications and perform the same duties as union trades workers employed by private contractors but are paid substantially less.
The wage issue hits especially hard in the City, where the soaring costs of housing, transportation, and daily expenses continue to outpace workers’ pay.
“I’ll be damned if San Francisco building trades members are going to make a penny less than workers in other areas who, arguably, have their own cost pressures and concerns,” Gonzalez said. “We know it’s certainly worse in San Francisco and harder to make ends meet here.”
Paying UCSF trades workers 90% of the prevailing wage would still cost the university less than outsourcing the work to private contractors, who would have to be paid the full prevailing wage.
“It’s kind of ridiculous that they want to argue against a discount on what they would otherwise pay if they had to contract our work,” Gonzalez said, referring to negotiators on the UCSF side. “We’re offering them a very clean solution that they’ve already put in writing and agreed to for UC Berkeley workers for multiple contracts now.”
Frustration with UCSF has been building for months. The coalition reopened negotiations last September and spent months waiting for the university to present a serious proposal. After the previous contract expired, the unions agreed to a 30-day extension in exchange for retroactive wage protections.
“Employers take for granted the value of labor peace. We may have to demonstrate labor unrest.”
Gonzalez said that he’d hoped the extension would allow UCSF to finalize a proposal similar to contracts recently settled with other unions, including the California Nurses Association and Communications Workers of America. Instead, the university continued delaying meaningful bargaining.
The trades eventually sent UCSF what they described as a comprehensive proposal outlining a path to settlement. According to Gonzalez, the university responded by asking for yet another 30-day extension. This time, union members said no.
With the contract now expired, the coalition is no longer bound by a no-strike clause, opening the door to escalating labor actions. Gonzalez said the unions are also investigating multiple unfair labor practice complaints, accusing the university of implementing workplace policy changes during bargaining and failing to send negotiators with meaningful authority to make decisions.
“Employers take for granted the value of labor peace,” he said. “We may have to demonstrate labor unrest for them to truly appreciate labor peace.”
It isn’t as if the building trades haven’t enjoyed a good relationship with UCSF. The contract fight comes as the university is in the middle of a sweeping long-term redevelopment of its Parnassus Heights campus, where union trades workers are building some of the university’s largest infrastructure projects in decades.
For instance, construction is underway on the new 15-story UCSF Health Helen Diller Hospital and the Barbara and Gerson Bakar Research and Academic Building, alongside demolition of the former School of Nursing building. Also in the works with union construction workers are major seismic retrofits and extensive utility infrastructure upgrades designed to modernize the aging campus.
The SF Building Trades Council and UCSF years ago negotiated a community workforce agreement to perform this work.
“We’re going to fight to preserve good jobs at the university system, and we’re not going to back down.”
Where does this leave us? Apparently, in a position where UCSF is spending billions to expand and modernize its campuses while at the same time resisting wage parity for the workers who maintain those facilities once construction crews leave.
Rich Morales is a business representative with Painters Local 1176, part of District Council 16. He was a member of the team that won the 90% prevailing wage for Berkeley workers and is now participating in the negotiations at UCSF.
“They are constantly backtracking and saying they don’t have the money,” Morales said. “They don’t seem to grasp the concept of what we’re looking for for our members, but then they’ll still continue to say how they take care of their workers at the same time, and we don’t see it the same.”
Things might now be shifting in the trades’ favor. AFSCME Local 3299 recently announced a tentative agreement with the University of California after more than two years of bargaining and organizing. The deal includes major wage increases, a $1,500 lump-sum payment for career employees, and a new $25 minimum wage beginning in 2025 that will rise to more than $30 an hour by 2029.
“They won a huge contract, and now it’s our turn,” Morales said.
As San Francisco’s second-largest employer after the City itself, UCSF employs tens of thousands of workers across hospitals, research labs, campuses, and clinics. The institution exerts enormous economic and political influence across healthcare, research, and construction.
The SF Building Trades Council is similarly influential.
“They’re going to force us into a fight mode that I don’t think they’re prepared for,” Gonzalez said. “We’re going to fight to preserve good jobs at the university system, and we’re not going to back down.”