As you are probably aware, our graduate students have voted to go on strike tomorrow morning (see attached flyer). They are striking to support their UCSC colleagues but also to extend their demands for a system-wide COLA (Cost Of Living Adjustment). We know that our members will have different opinions about this strike and might be willing to commit to different degrees of solidarity from organizing teach-ins in their classes to canceling classes in Week 9, as some of our board members have suggested.
The FA Board is in constant communication with the student strikers and will let you know about options to express your solidarity as events unfold. But at this stage, the most important way to express sympathy for the striking students is to SHOW them and the whole campus community our support.
We call on all of you who agree at least in principle with the reasons for this strike to meet in front of Cheadle Hall at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, February 27, in your academic regalia or dressed in black. We will send a delegation upstairs to ask the administration to respond in good faith to the impetus behind the strike-the high cost of rents and low pay-and not to retaliate against the grad student strikers or their faculty, staff, and student supporters. We will then walk over to the noon rally at Storke Plaza.
Let’s make this big!
Spread the word!
Tell your department colleagues, including lecturers and staff, to join you in supporting our graduate students!
SBFA Faculty Association Executive Board
