On Nov. 1, AFSCME 3299, the union for UC service and patient care workers, voted to authorize an unfair labor practice strike over claims that UC management illegally intimidated UC hospital workers who struck in May. The strike vote was authorized with 96 percent of AFSCME 3299 members in favor of striking.

AFSCME 3299’s service and patient care workers will participate in a one-day unfair labor practice strike of all 10 UC campuses and five UC medical centers on Nov. 20. The union will be joined by members of the California Nurses Association and UC Santa Cruz’ Skilled Crafts Unit who will participate in a sympathy strike on the same date. Each union has given the UC a 10-day notice of their strike as bound by law.

An unfair labor practice strike calls for management to change their actions that are considered to be unfair practice.

According to Todd Stenhouse, AFSCME 3299 communications director, the strike authorization was a direct result of alleged threats made by administrators towards UC hospital workers when they participated in a contract strike over safe staffing protection back in May. Stenhouse claims that UC administrators illegally coerced healthcare workers with their jobs before and during the strike if they participated.

“When UC hospital workers participated in their first ever strike back in May, UC administrators literally pulled them aside and threatened their jobs if they exercised their collective bargaining rights,” Stenhouse said. Not only is that illegal, it creates an inherently unsafe work environment.”

Stenhouse claims threats were made UC system wide with 39 incidents of illegal worker intimidation. According to Stenhouse the strike authorization is more fundamental because it affects students and patients as well as workers.

“If the people who are closest to students and patients can’t advocate for their safety, that inherently puts students and patients at risk. So this is a critically important issue,” Stenhouse said.

According to Dianne Klein, UCOP media specialist, any alleged threats or illegal actions done by university administrators during the strike are denied by the UC. Klein claims that once aware of the strike, the university made preparations beforehand by asking employees whether they intended to come to work in order to predict staffing levels and prepare replacement workers. She claims that the university’s preparatory actions were legal.

“What we did was perfectly legal,” Klein said. “And that’s prudent if you’re going to run a hospital; you need to know how many employees that are going to show up to work.”

The process AFSCME 3299 went through for going on strike began with issuing a complaint to the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) which decides whether or not there is enough substantial evidence to warrant an investigation before the issue is scheduled before an administrative law judge who decides if there is any merit to the claims.

According to Kathryn Lybarger, AFSCME 3299 president, after reviewing the charges, PERB believed there was substantial evidence to warrant investigation for the issue. However, Klein claims a scheduled hearing has yet to be arranged.

According to Stenhouse, the Unfair Labor Practice Committee within AFSCME 32999 will determine the date and duration of the strike now that it has been authorized. Stenhouse claims that AFSCME 3299 will honor the law that requires them to give the UC 10 days notice before striking and will take extra steps to protect hospital patients in the event of work stoppage through their Patient Protection Task Force.

Following the unfair labor practice strike authorization, AFSCME 3299 hopes to see clear accountability taken by the university and see administrators who contributed to the alleged threats disciplined or removed.

“There needs to be a level of accountability and UC needs to take steps to prevent its supervisors and managers from engaging in this type of conduct in the future,” Stenhouse said. “Have any of them been disciplined? We want to see the UC take tangible action to protect the workplace and to protect the safety and voice of workers.”

According to Lybarger, the negotiations made with the UC and the strike are not related. Negotiations that led to the contract strike in May are being made over safe staffing, particularly the automatic conversion of per diem workers to career status and the removal of contracting up.

“To wait five hours to even get any type of attention, to even have a nurse provide for you, I can’t even put the words in,” Liz Negrete, a UC Davis patient access representative said. “You can’t let someone, who could be us, sit there and suffer because you don’t want to put enough people on staff. Because we don’t have enough people.”

Additional AFSCME 3299 goals include wage increases for service and patient care workers, affordable and accessible health care and the removal of Paid Time Off, a policy that cuts into vacation and sick days for hospital workers.

According to Klein negotiations between AFSCME 3299 and the University are ongoing. Lybarger claims that the University has made no substantial movement to the union’s core issues. She claims that the University’s final offer included cuts to service and patient care workers, which she considered to be inadequate.

“We are still in negotiations. We are hopeful we can avoid a strike; nobody wants a strike,” Klein said.

AFSCME 3299 is the largest union in the UC system, representing around 22,000 UC workers in two units. This consists of around 8,000 service workers and around 13,000 patient care technical workers.

“We took on careers of public service at the university with a purpose of doing the best jobs we possibly could for the people who walk through those hospital doors and for the students who come to learn at one of the best public universities in the world,” Lybarger said.

While Stenhouse believes legal action taken against UC is a possible outcome, he hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“Ultimately, sunshine is the best disinfectant,” Stenhouse said. “And when there’s illegal harassment, and illegal intimidation in a workplace, we will not sit silently and allow those who devote their lives to serving the public to be intimidated, harassed and bullied. There will be repercussions when that type of conduct takes place. Our workers stand united.”

Collaboration between the Bodega Bay Marine Laboratory and six departments within the Colleges of Letters and Science, Biological Sciences and Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has resulted in the creation of a new marine and coastal sciences major at UC Davis.

“This is the first time in UC Davis history that three colleges have come together in the creation of a major,” said Tessa Hill, an associate professor of geology and lead advisor of the marine and coastal sciences major.

Because the major involves three colleges, it took approximately a year before it could be approved. Each individual college reviewed the major’s requirements against its own criteria and then sent it to the Academic Senate for approval. Now after a year of evaluation, the marine and coastal sciences major is officially available for sign-up.

Development of the program was initiated by increasing student interest in the marine sciences.

“The current marine science courses are pretty popular,” Hill said. “But up until now, we couldn’t offer students a degree that focused specifically in this field.”

For this reason, the new Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute, which opened its doors on Aug. 1, was created to develop an undergraduate degree program that showcased UC Davis’ strength in the marine sciences.

Another of the Institute’s goals was to coordinate and develop a research program for students to gain hands-on experience of coastal and marine sciences at the Bodega Bay Marine Laboratory. The Bodega Marine Lab sits on California’s north coast and is a leading multidisciplinary facility that researches solutions to environmental problems in coastal ecosystems.

Students interested in the major but concerned about the requirements to switch should know that the core science courses required for the major are the same across most science majors.

“Since the major involves rigorous prerequisite preparation in mathematics, physics and chemistry during the first two years, almost any student with a science major can switch to the marine and coastal sciences major within their first two to three years at Davis,” Hill said.

After the first two years, students in the major will have the opportunity to choose a focus from one of four areas: coastal environmental processes, marine ecology and organismal biology, marine environmental chemistry and oceans and the earth system. The area of emphasis chosen by the student determines from which college they will graduate.

Students will also have a chance to participate in field research at the Bodega Marine Laboratory.

“The idea is for students to go live out at the Bodega Marine Lab and to take one quarter of courses out there,” Hill said.

Another one of the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s main goals is to create closer telecommunications and research connections between the Bodega Bay Lab and the UC Davis campus.

“This is in order to establish new research collaborations that normally wouldn’t have happened,” said Rick Grosberg, professor of evolution and ecology and the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute’s founding director.

Already in progress is another one of the Institute’s plans: the creation of a headquarter for marine scientists, from both campus and Bodega Bay, to work and meet with students and peers. The 1,200 square-foot space currently in development at Storer Hall will include a library and a localized area for future seminars, workshops and conferences.

Students interested in the major will find that it can prepare them for research positions in government laboratories or in private laborites, K-12 teaching, policy positions and consulting positions. Students can also choose to pursue graduate degrees.

So far, student reaction to the creation of the major has been positive.

“I think this is a great idea,” said fourth-year environmental sciences and management major Alyssa Obester. “I really like that it isn’t focused on one aspect of marine science. It will also create awareness of the Bodega Marine Lab, which I don’t think a lot of people know about.”

Fourth-year wildlife, fish and conservation biology major Sonia Harris, agreed.

“I’m glad that this major is here for incoming students, though I am a little upset that it wasn’t an existing major when I started here, since I really wanted to come to Davis with a marine science major,” Harris said.

For those looking to add or switch to this major, marine and coastal sciences advising is located in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences on campus.