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This week, thousands of UC employees are staging a three-day strike for better pay and working conditions. On Monday, more than 20,000 custodians, cooks, lab technicians, nurse aides and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 walked off their jobs. By Tuesday, two more unions joined in sympathy strikes. The union and UC reached a bargaining impasse last year. The university has said it won’t meet the workers’ demands. (Resmovits, 5/8)

Fong Chuu is a registered nurse who has assisted with countless liver transplants, kidney surgeries and gastric bypasses during 34 years at UCLA. Working with her are scrub technicians who sterilize equipment, hand medical instruments to the surgeon and dress patient wounds. They are a team, Chuu says, which is why she walked off her job Tuesday in support of those technicians and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299. The 25,000 member AFSCME local, the University of California's largest employee union, launched a three-day strike Monday. (Watanabe, 5/8)

The California Nurses’ Association and the University Professional and Technical Employees, which are also in contract negotiations with UC, called a sympathy strike for Tuesday and Wednesday. “Our hearts are torn. We want to be inside taking care of patients but we know that we need to be outside supporting our brothers and sisters from AFSCME,” said UCSF recovery nurse Erin Carrera. (Dillon, 5/8)

While the unions did provide a 10-day notice prior to striking, UC Davis did not negotiate nurse staffing levels with CNA, said Toby Marsh, chief nursing officer at UC Davis Medical Center. "We didn't know how many nurses would participate," he said. (Sullivan and Anderson, 5/8)