Two University of California employee unions, representing about 39,000 employees, announced a systemwide strike Friday. University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America 9119, which represents about 14,000 research and technical workers in the UC, issued a notice Friday that it will strike March 20. Read more...

Photo: University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America 9119, which represents about 14,000 research and technical workers in the UC, issued notice Friday that they will strike on March 20. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, the UC’s largest employee union, also announced Friday it would join the strike in solidarity with UPTE-CWA 9119. (Liz Ketcham/Assistant Photo editor)

University of California academic researchers applied for union representation, but the UC is objecting to the proposed unionization. United Auto Workers Local 5810, a union representing over 6,500 postdoctoral researchers at the UC, submitted a petition to California Public Employment Relations Board in September to add academic researchers to the union under a separate bargaining unit called Academic Researchers United. Read more...

Photo: University of California academic researchers applied to join a union representing postdoctoral researchers. The UC has opposed the move. Academic researchers are a broad group of researchers who are neither postdocs nor tenure-track faculty members. (Courtesy of Academic Researchers United)