With contract negotiations between University of California at Berkeley administrators and the unions representing clerical workers and untenured lecturers deadlocked, close to 3,000 workers may go on strike during the first three days of this year?s fall semester. The 2,300 members of the Coalition of University Employees who work as clerical staff are planning a three-day strike over pay starting on the first day of classes this coming Monday, and the 450 members of the UC Council of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are planning a one-day strike for Wednesday over job security. Although university officials insist that the impact on students will be minimal, the AFT is planning to ask students to join its walkout, and the approximately sixty members of the California Nurses Association who work at campus health centers are planning a three-day sympathy strike starting on Monday in support of the lecturers and clerical workers.
See STUART SILVERSTEIN, Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2002