Head of UC’s Largest Union Blasts Top Brass for Hiring Freeze Amid ‘Massive Vacancy Crisis’

Updated 9:45 a.m. Friday

The head of the University of California’s largest workers union slammed UC leaders a day after the administration announced a systemwide hiring freeze.

“It’s the weight at the top that’s crushing the system, said Liz Perlman, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 3299, which represents more than 37,000 UC service and patient care workers across the system’s 10 universities and five of its medical centers.

UC officials said on Wednesday the move was necessary to prevent layoffs and downsizing amid proposed state budget cuts — of nearly 8% — and unprecedented threats from the Trump administration to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in medical and science research funding.

Calling the hiring freeze “disappointing but not surprising,” Perlman said UC has had a de facto hiring freeze in place since the start of the pandemic, with administrators consistently prioritizing executive staffing — increasing their ranks by more than 40% — instead of filling crucial frontline roles.

“There’s been a massive vacancy crisis of frontline staff,” she said, noting that 13,000 of her union’s members have left their jobs over the last four years as a result of not receiving competitive wages and dealing with increasingly overwhelming workloads.

UC’s top brass “has essentially starved the people at the bottom, who then, all of a sudden, are the ones who need to tighten their belts,” said Perlman, whose union has been without a contract since July and last month staged a two-day strike across the system.

The hiring freeze puts thousands of job openings in limbo across the UC system, which employs roughly 26,000 faculty, 48,000 academic workers and 192,000 staff members.

In a letter explaining the decision, UC President Michael V. Drake said higher education is in a “time of great uncertainty” and that the freeze would affect nearly every corner of the vast university system — including its top ranks. Drake said he and chancellors were preparing for “significant financial challenges ahead.”

Drake also said all UC institutions should implement “cost-saving measures,” such as delaying maintenance and reducing business travel – and directed them to “prepare financial strategies and workforce management plans” to address potential shortfalls.

But Perlman said UC leaders aren’t taking responsibility for the questionable decisions they’ve been making for years.

“I understand that what’s happening at the federal level is serious,” she said. “But what’s been happening at the university for decades is a longstanding crisis of priorities.”

And despite UC claiming to be in a particularly precarious financial position, Perlman argued that the system continues to be profitable.

“They’ve had record student enrollment. They have record numbers of patient beds — 95% are filled across the system,” she said.

In response, Stett Holbrook, a UC spokesperson, said the university system has been negotiating a new contract with AFSCME for 15 months and offered two different proposals that included wage increases, health care subsidies and expanded sick leave — which the union rejected.

Holbrook also challenged Perlman’s assertion of a staffing crisis within her ranks.

“Data that UC has routinely shared with the union shows that over the last three years, AFSCME headcount actually increased, while the number of AFSCME-represented UC employees leaving UC is flattening,” he said in an email to KQED.

However, he added that UC, like many higher education institutions across the country, is “facing unprecedented financial challenges at both the state and federal level.” The hiring freeze, he said, is a key “preventive budget-saving measure.”

KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara contributed to this report.