SEIU Local 1000 strikes as Gavin Newsom squeezes state workers

By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit · October 22, 2026

Thousands of California state workers struck over pay and telework, exposing how Gavin Newsom's administration weaponizes time to squeeze the public servants who keep the state running.

I grew up in a house where the union card was a shield. My father was a UAW shop steward in Flint, and my mother taught public school. They taught me that the only thing standing between a worker and the whim of a boss is a signed contract. When that shield is stripped away, the fallout lands on the people who can least afford it.

Governor Gavin Newsom is currently trying to break that shield for 100,000 California state workers. On Wednesday, thousands of these employees walked off their jobs in a one-day strike. They are fighting for a pay raise and a return to flexible telework. This is not a simple disagreement over a budget line. It is a calculated attempt by the state to treat public servants as budgetary shock absorbers. The Newsom administration is wrong, and its tactics are a betrayal of the working class the governor claims to champion.

The cost of a "bad deal"

When you follow the money downward, you see the human wreckage of the state's austerity. The Guardian reports the story of Joseph Santillan, a 43-year-old motor vehicle records specialist. He began his career earning $17 per hour. Now, he is maxed out on his pay scale. He has lived at home with his mother for the past six years because he cannot support himself.

Then there is William Hernandez, a 26-year-old financial institutions examiner. He does not own a car because he cannot afford both a vehicle and housing. Rent consumes about half of his monthly wages. This is the reality for workers across many state departments. They are the cooks, custodians, and nurses who keep California moving.

This struggle mirrors the 2018 Teachers' strike in the United States. In that wave, essential workers walked out because they were tired of being undervalued by the state. Now, SEIU Local 1000 is facing the same erosion. They are asking for higher state healthcare contributions because premiums have spiked. Ezra Roberts, a CalTrans analyst, noted that workers use benefits to make up for low pay, but those benefits are shrinking.

A mandate for control, not productivity

The strike is also a rebellion against a power trip. On July 1, Governor Newsom implemented a four-day return-to-office mandate. For many, this was a sudden stripping of flexibility that worked. Maryann Yunsan, a DMV hearing officer, said the three days of remote work they had for years were taken away "just like that."

This mandate is not about efficiency. Don Chaddock told the Sacramento Bee the state pulls workers into the office just for video meetings. It is a performance of productivity. It is about the gaze of the manager, not the quality of the work.

This rigid control is a ghost of the 2018-2019 Government Shutdown. Back then, federal employees faced financial distress while the people at the top played political games. Here, the game is about who holds the leverage. The administration is using the office building as a tool of discipline.

Weaponizing the clock

The most damning part of this dispute is how the state handled the bargaining table. SEIU Local 1000 has been without a contract since late June. On June 30, the very day the previous agreement expired, the state rejected nine union proposals.

Bobby Roy, the union's Chief Negotiator, called this a tactic to "weaponize time." By forcing workers to rush, the state hopes they will make mistakes or cave out of desperation. This is a classic corporate play. The 2023 UAW Strike shares this exact mechanism. In that fight, auto workers had to reclaim wages and flexibility from employers who used inflation and time to squeeze them.

CalHR tried to stop this walkout through the state’s labor referee. They argued that the strike would compromise public health and safety. This is the standard playbook. Frame the workers as the threat to the public. Hide the fact that the employer is the threat to the workers. The Public Employees Relations Board eventually allowed the strike to proceed, provided about 5,000 essential workers remained on the job.

The state is betting that a one-day strike is a temporary nuisance. They are betting that workers will accept another "bad deal" if they wait long enough.

The governor spends his time cultivating a pro-labor brand for a potential presidential run. But you cannot claim to love the working class while your Department of Human Resources treats 100,000 employees like an inconvenience. The hypocrisy is a slap in the face to every person standing on a picket line in Sacramento and beyond.

Justice requires more than a "fair and responsible agreement" in a press release. It requires a 20% raise to offset years of real wage erosion. It requires a telework policy based on the needs of the job, not the ego of the administration. Most of all, it requires the state to stop treating the clock as a weapon. Governor Newsom can keep his national ambitions, but he must first pay the people who actually run his state. If he does not, he will find that 100,000 workers are a much larger force than any political consultant.

SEIU Local 1000 strikes as Gavin Newsom squeezes state workers

The cost of a "bad deal"

A mandate for control, not productivity

Weaponizing the clock

Sources