When 100,000 State Workers Walk: California's First-Ever State-Worker Strike

On Wednesday, roughly 100,000 California state workers will stop work for one day.

They are the nurses in state prison hospitals and the clerks at the DMV, the custodians and the educators, the IT professionals and the analysts — the people who keep the machinery of the state running across 140 departments and agencies. Their union, SEIU Local 1000, California's largest public-sector union, has voted to hold a one-day unfair practice strike on October 21. If it happens as called, it will be the first strike in the local's history.

The fight has already had one decisive round. For two weeks, the Newsom administration worked to have the strike blocked by the state's own labor board. On Friday, the board declined to halt it. The strike is on.

How we got here

The state's contract with its largest union expired on June 30. For three and a half months, the workers have done the same jobs under no contract at all.

Bargaining stalled. In early September, the state rejected the union's proposals in bulk — a blanket rejection, the union says, with no counterproposal. The workers had already answered the pattern in the language of labor law: on July 22, they filed an unfair practice charge with the California Public Employment Relations Board, alleging that the state was bargaining in bad faith. The board moved the charge forward in early October, and the union filed a second charge in October over the state's handling of essential-worker designations.

Then the members voted. Well over 90 percent of members who voted authorized the strike — CBS Sacramento reported 92.6 percent; KCRA reported 96.2 percent, and the union said the vote was near-unanimous. On October 8, the union gave the state written notice: a one-day strike on October 21.

What they're asking for

The demand list is short and specific. A 20 percent general wage increase over three years — 7 percent in 2026 and 2027, 6 percent in 2028. Increased state contributions toward health care costs, including what the union calls "new solutions" for workers in rural communities. Telework that works: the state's push to end remote work after years of it has been one of the sharpest points of contention. And secure retirement, as the union's campaign puts it.

Union president Anica Walls told CBS Sacramento that the administration's budget objections do not hold up to the arithmetic:

"We are less than 3% of the budget, so we are just asking the administration to prioritize their employees who make them look good by keeping these great services running."

The workers' share of the budget is small. The services they deliver are not. The people who show up every day are the ones who run them.

The state fights back

The administration's answer to the strike notice was legal, not financial. CalHR, the state's human resources department, which bargains on the state's behalf, filed its own unfair practice charge asking PERB to block the strike. The state argued that a walkout "puts unfair pressure on mediation" — the process the labor board had just sent the parties to, which began last Thursday — and that the union had failed to exempt the health and safety workers who must remain on the job. The state named California Highway Patrol officers, prison hospital workers, and Caltrans employees as those at risk.

The union's countercharge tells the other half of the story. The two sides had been negotiating which essential workers would be exempted since September. The union says the state kept moving the goalposts, canceled the October 8 and 9 essential-worker meetings, and then accused the union of not cooperating. "The Union at all times remained prepared to provide line passes," the union's charge says. "CalHR instead elected to terminate those negotiations."

The board divided the difference where it had power to do so. The state argued it needed roughly 5,350 essential workers to protect public health and safety. The union proposed close to 3,250. PERB's settlement: about 4,400 — the union's list plus nearly 1,160 additional workers, roughly 1,080 of them in the correctional health care system that serves about 88,800 inmates. That is down sharply from the roughly 6,000 workers deemed essential when the local's last strike threat, in 2016, was averted by an eleventh-hour deal.

The board made one finding worth underlining. In a memo to both parties, interim general counsel Joseph Eckhart wrote that "the State has been unable to provide accurate information regarding the number of available replacement workers" — and directed the administration to keep staffing up. When the board set a 2 p.m. Friday deadline for the union to confirm its essential-worker exemptions, the union met it.

"We are ready to hold the line on Oct. 21," Walls told the Sacramento Bee.

The cost of one day

An unfair practice strike is a stoppage over how an employer bargains, not over what it offers. It does not require a declared impasse; it requires a charge that the employer is not bargaining in good faith. That is why the state's timing argument — striking before mediation is finished — carried little weight with the board. The strike is a demand that the state bargain; the wage demands are the stakes behind it.

The cost falls on the workers, and the union is candid about it. The state has instructed departments to dock pay for the day — the payroll cutoff is October 22 — and, the union says, to record strike absences as AWOL on timekeeping. The local maintains a strike fund, but it is not wage replacement. "Missing even one day of pay is a huge sacrifice for members who are already struggling," the union's strike guide says. More than 95,000 members are eligible to walk out; the designated essential workers will report to their jobs.

Chief negotiator Bobby Dalton Roy told Abridged that the union took that line seriously: "We do care about the safety of folks, the health and public safety, and so we are committed to honoring that and making sure that no one is … at risk."

What it means

California has never seen a stoppage this large by the people who run the state. The last time this local authorized a strike, in 2016, an eleventh-hour deal averted the walkout. This time the union has set its terms in advance: a line-pass agreement for essential workers, a one-day action, and a plain warning that October 21 "won't be the last time we show the State our collective power."

On Wednesday the lines stand at state offices in Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego and more. In Sacramento the day runs in two phases: worksite lines in the morning, then a rally at CalHR's headquarters at 1810 16th Street — the department that has, in the union's telling, refused to bargain in good faith — and a march to the Capitol Annex.

The state can still stop this. It would take one decision: come to the table and bargain. "Administrations may change, but our demand will not: bargain fairly with the workers who keep California running," the union says.

"We show up for Californians every single day in state offices, hospitals, schools, libraries and more," Walls said. "This vote is a notice to the Newsom administration that if they continue to bargain in bad faith, we will take action."