The union representing 48,000 graduate pupil instructing assistants, researchers and different pupil employees throughout the College of California’s 10 campuses has voted to authorize a strike and “maximize chaos,” alleging that its employees’ rights have been violated at a number of universities by actions in opposition to pro-Palestinian protests, union leaders introduced Wednesday night.
The walkouts, that are nonetheless being deliberate, had been permitted by 79% of the 19,780 members of the United Auto Staff Native 4811 who voted. The strike vote comes as campuses all through the UC system have been roiled by tensions and protests over the Israel-Hamas battle, together with a violent mob assault on a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA.
Although the vote provides the union permission to strike as quickly as Wednesday evening, it was unclear when or the place the walkouts would happen. The union represents instructing assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral students.
The union rebuked UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Irvine for crackdowns on pro-Palestinian pupil protesters. On Wednesday night, scores of cops in riot gear had been transferring on pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCI who occupied and barricaded the Bodily Sciences Lecture Corridor.
Rafael Jaime, the union’s co-president and a PhD candidate in UCLA’s English division, mentioned the purpose can be to “maximize chaos and confusion” at universities the place the union alleges officers have violated employees’ rights over office situations throughout pupil protests in opposition to the Israel-Hamas battle.
“Our members have been beaten, concussed, pepper sprayed, both by counter-protesters and by police forces. As a union, it is our responsibility to stand beside them,” the union mentioned in an announcement. “In order to de-escalate the situation, UC must substantively engage with the concerns raised by the protesters — which focus on UC’s investments in companies and industries profiting off of the suffering in Gaza.”
In a letter despatched to graduate pupil employees on Wednesday, the College of California warned college students in opposition to placing.
“The University’s position is that the Union’s strike is unlawful, and as a result, a work stoppage is not protected strike activity. This means that participating in the strike does not change, excuse, or modify, an employee’s normal work duties or expectations. And, unlike a protected strike, you could be subject to corrective action for failing to perform your duties,” the unsigned letter from the workplace of the president mentioned.
The tutorial employee strike can be modeled after final 12 months’s “stand up” strikes in opposition to Ford, Stellantis and Common Motors and much like latest strikes at Southern California resorts. The walkouts wouldn’t goal all campuses without delay, Jaime mentioned, however one after the other primarily based on how receptive administrations are to pro-Palestinian activists.
UC Riverside and UC Berkeley have reached agreements with protesters to finish encampments and discover divestment from weapons corporations. Leaders at these universities have rejected calls to focus on Israel particularly or for tutorial boycotts in opposition to alternate applications and partnerships with Israeli universities.
Whereas some Jewish college students have supported pro-Palestinian protests, nationwide Jewish teams have criticized the divestment push, saying it’s antisemitic as a result of it goals to delegitimize the one predominantly Jewish nation.
Union members started casting their ballots on-line Monday. The strikes, Jaime mentioned, might run for any size of time by means of the tip of June. The interval covers a crucial second on campuses throughout finals and graduation workout routines.
In November and December 2022, the union walked our for six weeks, profitable important enhancements in wages and dealing situations and energizing a surge of union activism amongst educational employees throughout the nation.
Earlier than the strike vote outcomes got here out, the College of California mentioned the union was inappropriately flexing its muscle on a political challenge.
“UC believes that the vote currently being conducted by UAW leadership sets a dangerous precedent that would introduce non-labor issues into labor agreements,” mentioned Heather Hansen, spokesperson for the UC workplace of the president.
The disagreement hinges on whether or not pupil employees comparable to Jaime, who was a part of pro-Palestinian protests at UCLA the evening a violent mob attacked the encampment, are placing over a “workplace issue or political speech,” mentioned John Logan, a professor within the division of labor and employment research at San Francisco State College.
“The contract between UAW and UC does include language on academic freedom, but the university could say, ‘Yes, speech is protected, but the actions you engaged in go far beyond speech, preventing students from getting into [a] library or other campus [areas] that are not protected,’” Logan mentioned.
One other problem was turnout. Professional-Palestinian activism has touched each UC campus, however it has been stronger at these in or close to large cities. A union referendum final 12 months in help of a everlasting cease-fire within the Israel-Hamas battle and divestment handed by 90%, however obtained fewer than 6,000 complete votes. The latest contract ratification had greater than 36,000 votes. Turnout for the strike vote was excessive however lower than the contract ratification.
As school presidents throughout the nation have confronted criticism for calling in police in riot gear to clear pro-Palestinian encampments, the transfer to threaten a strike is among the greatest actions by an American labor union in help of Palestinians.
The vote got here after the union filed expenses with the state labor board over arrests of pro-Palestinian graduate pupil protesters at UCLA and suspensions and different self-discipline at UC San Diego and UC Irvine, accusing the colleges of retaliating in opposition to pupil employees and unlawfully altering office insurance policies to suppress pro-Palestinian speech.
The colleges have broadly mentioned they had been making an attempt to make sure secure campus environments whereas respecting free speech rights. Inside and exterior investigations are underway at UCLA.
Some members mentioned they believed the union’s criticism of the campus protest crackdown didn’t go far sufficient. Many pupil protesters have referred to as for campus police to be defunded or for universities to vow to by no means once more name municipal police to campus. The union didn’t embody these in its strike-related calls for.
“It’s really disappointing to me as a Black person that the union did not take a strong stance on policing and racial profiling on campus,” mentioned Gene McAdoo, a doctoral pupil within the UCLA College of Schooling and Data Research. “They portray themselves as radical, yet aren’t on this issue.”
McAdoo nonetheless voted in help, he mentioned, as a result of “withholding our labor gives us a lot of power and leverage to push the UC administration to meet [Students for Justice in Palestine] demands for divestment. That is the ultimate goal of this movement. But I also know that there is an undercurrent of folks who are still pushing for cops off campus.”
It’s not the primary time UAW employees have pushed for divestment. In 1973, Arab American employees in Detroit auto vegetation walked off the job in protest of the union’s funding in Israeli bonds.
However for a union to vote on a strike whereas a contract is in place is “unheard of in modern times,” mentioned Jeff Schuhrke, a labor historian who teaches at SUNY Empire State College.
Whereas the union calls for on educational freedom, free speech and safety from violence might arguably middle on office situations, additionally they explicitly help protesters’ requires divestment from weapons producers and different corporations cashing in on Israel’s battle in Gaza.
The strike vote “is not about economics. It’s not about a raise, or more benefits. It’s political,” Schuhrke mentioned.
The professor mentioned that harked again to the origins of the coed labor motion, when the primary graduate unions shaped within the Sixties in the course of the campus free speech and antiwar actions.
AFT Native 1570, a union of instructing assistants shaped at UC Berkeley within the throes of the campus free speech motion, voted in 1966 to strike in opposition to the College of California in response to police arresting college students conducting a sit-in round a U.S. Navy recruitment desk on campus.
The Instructing Assistants’ Assn. at College of Wisconsin-Madison, which grew out of the anti-draft sit-in and campus demonstrations in opposition to Dow Chemical for its position in manufacturing of napalm and different weapons for the Vietnam Battle, is the oldest graduate union nonetheless in existence within the U.S.
“The graduate union movement is coming full circle,” Schuhrke mentioned.
