Bundles of purple tinsel, purple inflatable wands and purple signs rose into the air as cars passed by a large group of Service Employees International Union members gathered on Fifth Street in Eureka last week.
Commercial trucks responded with booming horns and smaller cars let out an enthusiastic series of honks, inciting more cheering from the crowd. Most wearing union shirts matching in color with their gear, the group took periodic laps around the block reciting workers’ rights chants.
“When state workers are under attack, what do we do?” union member Tamara Boone yelled into a megaphone while leading the crowd of about 100 local workers and union representatives.
“Stand up, fight back!” a chorus of voices responded.
Similar scenes played out across California on Oct. 21 as SEIU Local 1000, the largest union for state employees, hosted the first strike in its four-decade history. The one-day walkout came in response to what members describe as bad faith bargaining by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration after the union’s last contract expired at the end of June.
Among the union’s calls are pay increases above what’s been offered to date, better benefit contributions and a reversal of remote work restrictions.
Newsom has “demanded wage reductions from the union to help shore up a budget crisis” last year, according to the nonprofit newsroom CalMatters, and pay cuts have been accepted by state workers in “three of the eight years” he’s been in the office.
On the working from home front, Newsom issued an executive order in March of 2025 requiring state employees to be in the office at least four days a week, “with further telework flexibilities granted on a case-by-case basis in light of individual circumstances, consistent with the executive order and existing family-friendly employment policies and legal obligations,” according to a release at the time.
The two sides — the California Department of Human Resources manages labor negotiations for the administration — are set to return to mediation on Oct. 30. CalMatters quotes the spokesperson Angela Musallam as saying the department “remains focused on achieving a fair and responsible agreement and continues to be available at the bargaining table.”
The strike was approved by union workers with a 96.2 percent majority vote, according to James Koeppel, a union steward who attended the Humboldt strike.
“We’ve been out of contract since July 1,” Koeppel said. “The state came back basically after not really bargaining at all … on the very last day and said no. One blanket denial to every proposal we had.”
He said the California Public Employee Relations Board, which, according to its website, “administers and enforces collective bargaining laws, promotes fair labor practices, and resolves disputes to support stable and harmonious labor-management relations across the public sector,” substantiated the union’s claims of bad faith bargaining.
The state is legally required to negotiate with state unions in good faith, according to Koeppel. During discussions, he said, the state has claimed it doesn’t have the funds to preserve annual raises as stipulated in Local 1000’s contract. However, Koeppel noted that the state has a greater budget this year that is being used on other projects and believes the government has chosen not to prioritize state workers.
“Our last contract, they decided not to pay us our 3 percent wage [increase]. They kicked it to 2027 and then deducted our pay by 5 percent because they said they didn’t have the money, and we’re gonna pay you in leave,” Koeppel said. “I have a toddler. Leave doesn’t buy diapers.”
A DMV employee, Boone said she was participating in solidarity with other state workers just trying to make ends meet. At the end of the day, Boone said, public-facing employees like herself are what keep the state running and their needs should be a priority.
“I don’t want just another day off. Give us our rates that we deserve, that you promised us. Like I said, we have to raise our families, and, like I said, we work hard. We’re on the front line every day and we get paid less,” Boone said. “And we deal with all the customers and customer service. We deserve a good contract.”
Jessica Henry Gibbs, who works for Caltrans, expressed similar sentiments.
“I think a lot of people have a misconception that we’re so well paid and that we have this incredible pension and these benefits, but all of these things come at a cost,” Henry Gibbs said. “So if we were in a private industry, we would make more money. And we pay a lot also into our retirement, and the state has decreased pension and retirement benefits for employees as time has gone on.”
Henry Gibbs said she’s seen the real-world impacts of the back to work order, including Caltrans employees from Del Norte County accepting demotions, transferring or quitting posts at the Eureka field office. She said she hopes that the governor will reconsider, describing telecommuting as “the wave of the future.”
“I think that the governor is really disrespecting workers by saying that they’re not working when they’re working remotely, and that’s just not true. I work, so I worked even harder because I was worried that someone might perceive that I wasn’t working,” Henry Gibbs said.
A member of the California Association of Professional Scientists, Monty Larson said he showed up to support fellow union workers.
His union, Larson said, had similar difficulties with the Newsom administration and went on strike in 2023 due to the state’s refusal to bargain, which did result in improvements to that year’s contract. However, relations between CAPS and Newsom have degraded since then. The union’s 2024 contract, according to Larson, was good for nine months before the state removed the previously negotiated pay increases. He said the state attempted to cut salaries again this year, then the Legislature stepped in to honor the union’s salary increases.
Larson expressed frustration with the administration’s lack of cooperation and having to continuously fight for wages, saying that cost of living hasn’t been accounted for in wage increases for state employees in a long time, which he finds even more hypocritical with the state’s increased budget for this year.
“It’s just slow simmering,” Larson said. “We’re state employees. We’re here to serve the public, and we just keep getting a guy that was born with a silver spoon in his mouth [and] is standing on our neck to do whatever he wants to do with state government while expecting us to do more with less. And it just continues.”
Koeppel said that the union’s demands from the state aren’t extreme, and that he is hoping the one-day event was enough to turn the tide of negotiations to prevent interruptions to public service.
“This is merely, ‘Come sit at the table and talk to us.’ That’s all they have to do, and we’ll come back to work.”
Griffin Mancuso is a California Local News Fellow placed with North Coast Journal, Inc. Reach him at (707) 442-1400, or griffin@northcoastjournal.com. The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Learn more about it at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.
This article appears in ‘Crash Course’ A Halloween Comic by Liz Valasco and Collin Yeo.