The union that represents thousands of physicians training at hospitals across the country said Monday that its University of California members will protest for a new contract at sites across the state over the next 10 days.
Starting Tuesday, June 2, at University of California, Davis Health in Sacramento and concluding on Thursday, June 11 at University of California, San Francisco Parnassus, residents and fellows will hold “unity breaks” — where they will gather for press conferences with elected officials outside their hospitals — at 17 different locations.
UCSF residents first unionized in 2017. Their existing contract expired at the end of June 2025 and was extended for a year to give each side more time to negotiate.
Unlike prior contract talks, however, residents at all University of California hospitals are now negotiating as a single collective, comprising the largest unionized group of doctors in the nation.
According to the union, the Committee of Interns and Residents, these actions are a response to “executives’ insistence on rolling back benefits won in previous contracts and ignoring safety issues voiced by residents,” including emergency-room conditions that doctors and nurses say are endangering patients and staff.
University of California leadership, the union said, is also threatening to take away residents’ fertility benefits.
Under their existing contract, residents receive a lifetime $30,000 benefit to cover qualifying expenses, including IVF procedures, medications, ultrasounds, freezing eggs or sperm, adoption fees, surrogacy and even a doula to assist with prepartum and postpartum care.
But University of California has proposed phasing out that benefit in 2027.
Instead, UC’s proposal would replace these benefits, and an existing $3,600 yearly meal stipend with $5,100 total annually starting in 2027 for fertility care, meals and other expenses like educational experiences.
“It feels like an attack on our ability not just to have a family, but to survive our training with a small child,” said Dr. Gloria Tavera, a UCSF gastroenterology fellow active in the union since 2021. “It’s a huge issue, and UC and California have been heading in the right direction, but this is a big step back.”
University of California did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tavera added that, separate from this issue, the union is fighting for more affordable childcare in general, since the median monthly cost of childcare in San Francisco “is well over 50 percent of [residents’] monthly salary.”
Both Tavera and a spokesperson for the union said university leadership has delayed negotiations and failed to come to the table despite the contract extension expiring in a month.
“Enough is enough. We’re tired of being disrespected at the bargaining table,” UCLA chief resident Dr. Diana Dayal said in the press release.
“Residents routinely work 14- and even 24-hour shifts for weeks on end. If we can arrange our packed schedules and show up to bargain, then UC negotiators should be able to make sure they can, too.”
According to Tavera, about 100 incoming residents recently filled out a union survey asking if they would have thought twice about choosing UCSF if they knew they could lose fertility benefits.
“The vast majority of them said yes,” she said.
The union is also arguing that UCSF should not need to cut costs right now. As Mission Local reported, the hospital system turned a net surplus of $809 million in 2025, just two years after running a net loss of $116 million.