On Wednesday, a stream of scientists wearing neon green shirts flowed down the H Street sidewalk in downtown Sacramento, circling the block and shouting chants like “No contract! No work!”
They hoisted up signs proclaiming “Defiance for Science” and support for pay equity: “$37.6B FOR CLIMATE ACTION? WHY NOT PAY US?”, one poster read. (The dollar amount references California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s prior climate spending goals.)
Kitty-corner to Cesar Chavez Plaza, at the CalEPA building, cars in support of their cause honked loudly while drums played on. One of the marchers sat in front of a cauldron of soup, offering it to other hungry scientists.
Many had been setting up for the march since 6:45 a.m., said California Association of Professional Scientists, or CAPS, President Jacqueline Tkac. Sacramentans can expect to see marchers cheering, chanting and picketing through Friday, a three-day strike that’s the first in CAPS’ history — and a first for the state. Before today, no state civil servant union had gone on strike since winning the right to do so through the 1977 Ralph C. Dills Act.
“We're out here because the state has essentially forced us to,” she said. “They refuse to provide us with a fair contract for the last three years since we've run out of a contract.”
The state scientists’ union, founded in 1984, rejected a tentative agreement reached between CalHR and CAPS’ bargaining team earlier this year, in February — the culmination of three years of bargaining. Almost 60% of voting members cast a “no” ballot.
Since then, the union has returned to the bargaining table, but in September, the Public Employee Relations Board declared negotiations at an impasse, meaning they have reached a stalemate.
Under state law, the union’s expired contract terms are effective until a new agreement is in place. When PERB declared impasse, it voided the union’s “no strikes” clause in their previous contract, setting the stage for this week’s strike.
CalHR spokesperson Camille Travis previously told the Sacramento Bee that the department does not comment on ongoing negotiations, including impasse procedures.
“The state remains committed to bargaining in good faith to reach a successor agreement with CAPS,” Travis wrote.
Tkac, the union’s bargaining committee chair, said CalHR and CAPS have had one mediation session, with another scheduled for Nov. 28.
“But it’s been same old, same old,” she said. “We hear excuses from the state as to why they refuse to provide us fair pay, and it’s as productive as talking to a brick wall.”
‘Like pay for like work’
Along with getting CalHR to return to the bargaining table to move forward from impasse, one of the union’s main points at the bargaining table is “like pay for like work.”
“The state has refused to acknowledge the similarities and duties that we perform as compared to say, engineers that we work alongside of, doing the exact same thing,” Tkac said.
David Rist, another bargaining team member and a former CAPS board member, said that “at one point in time, we had what we call pay equity.”
But he said pay has been lagging for around 17 years, with California state scientists’ salaries falling behind by 30% or more of the salaries in similar local, state and federal positions. Despite an effort to adjust manager pay to correct the situation in 2014, he said rank-and-file workers haven’t had the same adjustment made to their contracts.
Last month, Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 1677, which would have required the UC Berkeley Labor Center to launch an impartial study to analyze the existing state scientist salary structure, compare it with that of state employees doing similar work and look into alternative salary structure models.
In his veto message, he incorrectly argued that the bill would have required the state to implement an alternate salary structure without the bargaining process.
Vanessa Miguelino-Keasling, a research scientist in the California Department of Health’s California Cancer Registry, stands with Brendan Darsie at a California Association of Professional Scientists picket on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023.Janelle Salanga/CapRadio
In light of that veto and the persistent salary lag, Rist said that bargaining is “about us being able to attract and retain a talented workforce and stable workforce, to make sure that we're able to take on that mission that we've been charged with succeeding in.”
“We need the support of this administration to make sure that we can continue on doing what we'd love to do,” he added. “But we've got to be recognized and respected for what we do in order to get this job done, that we're all going to be faced with for many years into the future.”
To that end, two other related issues on the bargaining table are longevity pay and geographic pay. Rist said longevity pay will help the state “retain the expertise necessary in order to make sure that we can train our new scientists to carry on the work.”
And he added that securing salaries commensurate with the cost of living in high-cost areas like the Bay Area and Los Angeles is crucial to keeping scientists in their positions as opposed to moving elsewhere.
Scientist labor crucial part of day-to-day life in California
This year’s budget saw the state pulling back on some of its climate investments, with around $5 billion of funding being cut. But just last year, California touted the California Climate Commitment, with $54 billion being invested to “fight climate change … cut pollution, deploy clean energy and new technologies and protect Californians from harmful oil drilling.”
Rist said seeing the government’s investment in programs like these and Newsom “trying to do what’s right” is a stark contrast to the conversations happening at the bargaining table between CAPS and CalHR.
“It’s really troubling, because it suggests that there’s not the awareness of the need to invest in the scientists to carry these programs out,” he said.
Scientists’ work impacts Californians every day — they help manage and work on water quality, like Tkac, who is an environmental scientist for the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. Others test for toxicity in consumer products, like Rist, who works for the Department of Toxic Substance Control within Cal EPA.
“Any product that’s sold in California, we evaluate from a chemical standpoint, and we work to make that safer within industry,” he said.
And more recently, Californians have seen a prominent example of state scientists at work: the state’s COVID-19 pandemic response.
“It was us,” said Vanessa Miguelino-Keasling, a research scientist in the California Department of Health’s California Cancer Registry. “We responded to the COVID pandemic. It was us behind that data that he [Newsom] presented on his noontime updates … He even said himself, he values scientists. So we need him to recognize it's time to just give us what we deserve. And that's pay equity.”
Because the state scientists’ union hasn’t had a new contract in three years, Tkac said, scientists who “were working 70, 80, 90-hour workweeks” at the initial onset of the pandemic “haven't been paid in a way that acknowledges their hard work.”
“We're making history here, and hopefully laying precedents for future bargaining to make it easier for all unions, for them to be recognized and valued employees,” Miguelino-Keasling said.
The strike is set up to build each day, with more and more rank-and-file scientists called to picket and withhold their labor. Thursday and Friday will see scientists picketing throughout the state, not just in Sacramento. Scientists will also rally this weekend at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center outside the 2023 California Democratic Party State Endorsing Convention.
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