California’s biggest state worker union authorizes strike in Newsom’s last months

California’s largest state worker union says it’s ready to strike in the final months of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration.

SEIU Local 1000, which represents about 100,000 public employees, announced Thursday morning that its members overwhelmingly authorized a strike with 96% of people who voted in favor of walking out. The union wants better pay, more affordable healthcare coverage and more flexibility to work from home.

“It is an important step that state employees are taking,” said Anica Walls, the union’s president. “They’re exercising their right to hold the line and say, we deserve to be respected, paid and protected for the work that we do.”

The union’s contract expired July 1. It’s pushing Newsom to provide a larger raise and boost to benefits than the administration offered. The union says the state has room to offer more, pointing to a $20 billion increase in general fund spending over the past two years.

The union also filed a complaint with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board, accusing CalHR, the state agency that handles labor negotiations on behalf of the administration, of bad faith bargaining, delaying negotiations and rejecting proposals outright. In late September the board sided with the union, and concluded that CalHR “refused to meet and confer in good faith.”

In response to the board’s findings, Angela Musallam, CalHR’s deputy director of communications, said in an email to CalMatters that “the state has been, and remains open to negotiation, and is prepared to move into mediation to assist the parties in reaching an agreement.”

Musallam added that its focus “continues to be on achieving a fair and responsible agreement, and we remain available at the bargaining table.”

A strike would be unprecedented for the union, and it remains unclear when the strike would start and how long it would last. The union has never held a statewide walkout in the 44-year history of the labor groups that over time coalesced to become Local 1000. It came close to striking in 2016, but an eleventh-hour deal with then-Gov. Jerry Brown averted it.

The union represents almost half of the state government workforce, and includes a wide range of professionals including nurses, clerks, program analysts, information technology staff and custodians.

Its last three-year contract gave workers represented by Local 1000 three successive 3% raises and many received additional special salary adjustments. The total contract was expected to increase state spending cumulatively by $1.5 billion, according to estimates from the time.

A state budget crisis disrupted those plans. The deal was supposed to provide an additional 1% raise in 2025 if certain economic conditions were met, but the Newsom administration withheld that increase. Instead, unions in June 2025 agreed to temporary pay reductions that Newsom sought to balance the budget.

The reductions basically negated the contract's promised salary increase. Local 1000 also delayed a raise that was supposed to take effect July 1 until next summer.

Civil servants received additional days off of work in those deals, which they can cash out in the future.

If a strike occurs, some of the immediate effects on Californians could include delayed services at the DMV and the state’s unemployment and disability insurance offices, said Walls.

“Realistically we are less than 3% of the budget,” said Walls. “We do all the work that keeps all the necessary benefits for the Californians that deserve them. And in order for us to continue doing the jobs that we do, we simply want the administration to bargain with us in good faith.”

Asked whether the union is likely to strike a deal with Newsom or if it anticipates waiting until after the election when his successor steps in, Walls said the union would stand firm either way.

“Administrations change, but our demands won’t,” she said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.