(Westwood, CA) Over 600 UCLA skilled trades workers began a five-day strike today in protest of the University’s numerous violations of state labor law and unfair labor practices. The strike is expected to have significant impact on critical services, and will affect students returning from winter break, as well as the public.

Teamsters Local 2010 is advising the public to reschedule all nonessential medical appointments and to avoid the UCLA campus and medical centers on Friday, January 6 through Tuesday, January 10. Saturday’s UCLA versus Stanford men’s basketball game may be affected as well.

Local 2010 represents the 600 skilled trades workers and more than 3,000 clerical workers at UCLA. The striking skilled trades workers provide critical services to UCLA, including the maintenance and operation of patient care facilities at the UCLA Center for Health Sciences and UCLA Santa Monica Hospital, and UCLA’s research and instructional facilities.

Teamsters skilled trades workers struck previously for one-day in November 2016, causing disruptions throughout the medical centers and campuses at UCLA and UC San Diego with pickets shutting down construction sites and turning back deliveries.

The administrative, clerical, and support workers at all ten campuses, five medical centers, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab will be conducting a legal and protected system-wide strike on Tuesday, January 10, both protesting ULPs and in support of striking UCLA skilled trades workers.

Teamsters Local 2010 represents approximately 12,000 administrative support workers system wide, as well as the approximately 800 electricians, elevator mechanics, plumbers, and facilities workers at UCLA and UC San Diego. The Union gave significantly more than 10-days notice of the strike to give UC the opportunity to protect students, patients and the public from harm.

UCLA skilled trade workers have gone over four years without a raise with the University refusing to bargain wages for past years, despite admitting to budgeting for those unpaid wages.