Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees were expected to walk off their jobs Monday in Riverside, San Diego, Los Angeles, Irvine and other cities across the state. Combined, the union represents about 8,500 employees at five medical centers and 10 student health centers within the University of California system.

“It's unfortunate that after almost a year of negotiating, it has come to a strike,” said UCSD employee Angela Vasquez. “But with gas and food prices, our families are in crisis. We cannot wait another month for UC executives to end poverty wages – my family could be homeless by then.”

The AFL-CIO affiliate and the UC system have been at an impasse over wage levels since April.

The university system has asked judges to prevent those potential strikers from asking non-union service workers from honoring the picket lines. They work as cooks, servers, gardeners and radiology, respiratory and operating room technicians.

The five-day walkout might affect everything from the cleaning of common areas at UC campuses to hospital food and janitorial services, union leaders said.

Medical services provided by support staff will be handled by supervisors or non-union workers, according to a statement from the UC system.

A judge in San Francisco said Friday the threatened walkout would irreparably harm UC patients, faculty and students, and banned the strike until the union gave adequate notice. But union leaders said that serving formal notice of the strike last Thursday fulfilled that requirement.

Officials at the university system said last week that patients at 15 UC medical centers and hospitals across the state will be endangered if the strike takes place, arguing it should be banned because, they say, the union has not bargained in good faith.

“Our proposals are fair and responsive to many of the union's expressed concerns, and our employees deserve to have these negotiations resolved,” UC labor relations executive director Howard Pripas said in a statement Friday.

AFSCME officials said their members are paid “poverty-level” wages –as low as $10 an hour.

UC officials said they offered a 26 percent pay raise over five years to patient-care employees and raises of about $1.75 to $2 per hour for service employees, depending on the cost of living at each location. The system is also offering enrollment in the same health care and pension systems offered all other UC employees.

But the union claims UC wages are dramatically below those paid to community college workers in the state. It says 96 percent of its membership is eligible for food stamps, subsidized housing or other welfare-type assistance despite full-time employment.