Union member workers at UC San Diego's Hospitals in La Jolla and Hillcrest began a two-day strike on Wednesday.
They joined the picket lines with approximately 37,000 other patient care and services workers for the UC Healthcare system across California.
AFSCME 3299 claims that contract negotiations with the UC system haven't gotten anywhere over the last several months.
Mark Potter was one of the strikers and has been a member of AFSCME 3299 for the past eight years. Potter says he fixes exercise equipment and works in building maintenance for the La Jolla location.
Potter says he feels like the pay gap between him and the UC System is staring him right in the face.
"We're forgotten about," Potter said. "We have new construction all over campus. The UC has a lot of money, but they just don't want to give it to the essential workers that were essential during the pandemic, but all of a sudden we're no longer essential."
Potter is on the picket line along with other patient care and service workers.
The union members' contracts expired in July.
The union said it's pushing for an agreement that would help the patient care and service workers with living and housing affordability, plus close the gap with staff vacancies.
The union system said the UC system extended a proposal for a 5% pay raise and a minimum wage of $25 per hour for the workers.
Now, the two sides are at a standstill over healthcare costs.
As premiums for employees went up, the UC system also offered a $75 or $100 monthly credit to offset those costs.
The UC system's Office of the President wrote ABC 10 News, "During contract negotiations, the union stopped responding to their proposals in May and declared an impasse in July, which we did not object to."
However, the UC system also reassured its patients that it would feel minimal impacts because of the strike, and all hospital locations would remain open during the strike.
The UC system has more information about the ongoing negotiations here.
