Graduate students, postdocs, and other academic student employees are essential to the teaching and research mission of the University of California, especially as undergraduate enrollments rise. Given the escalating costs of living in California, 48,000 people in the UC system represented by three unions–UAW 2865, UAW 5810, and SRU-UAW–are coordinating their fight for living wages, affordable UC housing, greater support for working parents, sustainable transit benefits, equity for international scholars, and other improvements that would strengthen teaching and research across the University of California. A full list of their demands is available at fairucnow.org.
Negotiations for new contracts with the University of California have not been going well. The UAW has filed more than twenty Unfair Labor Practices (ULP) charges against the University of California, such as failing to respond to requests for basic information and unilaterally making changes to working conditions. The California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) has issued complaints against the university in at least three of those ULPs.
Now, all three unions that represent teaching assistants, tutors, readers, student researchers, postdocs, and academic researchers are voting on whether to strike in response to these ULPs. A strike authorization vote is taking place between October 26 and November 2; if approved, the UAW may call an open-ended strike to begin as soon as November 14.
The Council of UC Faculty Associations calls on the University of California to cease its unlawful behavior, resume good faith negotiations, and settle fair contracts with the unions. We support fair wages and working conditions for academic workers and hope a strike can be avoided. If not, we encourage all Senate faculty to support our fellow academic workers. We remind you of the power of Senate faculty solidarity last year in the UC-AFT lecturers union’s successful campaign for a substantive new contract that inspired academic workers around the country.
Sign on here to show your support for the union efforts and to urge President Drake to settle fair contracts immediately to avoid a devastating strike.
Should UCOP fail to engage in negotiations, The Council of UC Faculty Associations will offer guidelines on faculty rights in the event of a union-sanctioned strike along the lines of those we provided in the face of a potential UC-AFT strike in fall 2021. While the negotiations are ongoing, and before voting concludes, the UAW says faculty can support the student workers in the following ways:
Should UCOP fail to engage in negotiations, The Council of UC Faculty Associations will offer guidelines on faculty rights in the event of a union-sanctioned strike along the lines of those we provided in the face of a potential UC-AFT strike in fall 2021. While the negotiations are ongoing, and before voting concludes, the UAW says faculty can support the student workers in the following ways:
Contact University leadership (Chancellor, UCOP, etc.) and demand that they bargain in good faith (template letter available here)
Donate to the hardship fund: https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw
Discuss with undergraduate students the critical role that academic workers play in the everyday functions of the university
Other suggestions for supportive actions can be found here.
UCSB Senate Faculty who have signed the Faculty Association Statement Regarding Possible Strike by UAW 2865, UAW 5810 and SRU-UA: (Updated 11/21/22 1:00 pm)
Alenda Chang
Laila Shereen Sakr
Harold Marcuse
Mona Damluji
Eileen Boris
Felice Blake
Peter Bloom
Stephanie Hom
Julie Carlson
Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley
Raphaele Clement
Susan Derwin
Bruce Kendall
Giuliana Perrone
Adam Sabra
George Lipsitz
Karen Szumlinski
Diana Arya
Jennifer Tyburczy
Dwight Reynolds
Stephanie Batiste
Elizabeth Belding
Elena Aronova
Kevin Whitehead
Paul Berkowitz
Mike Wilton
Manuel Covo
Reginald Daniel
David Novak
Tim Dewar
Rachel Lambert
Miroslava Chavez-Garcia
Laury Oaks
Lal Zimman
Dorothy Chun
Pei-te Lien
Alison Brysk
Andrew Norris
Kate McDonald
Amit Ahuja
Taylor M. Moore
Amber VanDerwarker
Enda Duffy
Luke S. Roberts
Craig Montell
David Stein
Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi
Matto Mildenberger
Kim Yasuda
Ralph Armbruster Sandoval
Heather Blurton
Stephan Miescher
Samantha Stevenson
Jorge Luis Castillo
Veronica Castillo-Muñoz
Laurie Freeman
Erika D Rappaport
Tae-Yeoun Keum
Paul Sonnino
Jenni Sorkin
Bernadette Andrea
Sherene Seikaly
Prof Robert Antonucci
Dr. Dana Kornberg
Anshu Malhotra
Naoki Yamamoto
Jessica Nakamura
Paul Spickard
Hui-Ling Malone
Julie Bianchiini
Jean Beaman
Raquel Pacheco
Claudine Michel
Bhaskar Sarkar
Erin Khue Ninh
Alice O’Connor
Eric R. A. N. Smith
Jia-Ching Chen
Lina Hou
Amrah Salomon J.
Mayfair Yang
Brandon Greene
Kevin Anderson
Andrew Maul
Ricado Jacobs
Lisa Parks
Janet Walker
Jennifer Jacobs
Elizabeth Ackert
Barbara Holdrege
Charmaine Chua
Kai Thaler
Juan Cobo Betancourt
John Foran
Anthony Barbieri
Xiaorong Li
Claudio Fogu
Louise Fradenburg Joy
Joseph Blankholm
Juan Campo
Greg Johnson
Elizabeth Perez
Silvia Bermúdez
Bishnupriya Ghosh
Jose Cabezon
Martha Sprigge
Utathya Chattopadhyaya
Charles Wolfe
Heidi Amin-Hong
Magda Campo
Thomas J. Mazanec
William Elison
María Lumbreras
Aashish Mehta
Viola Miglio
Lisa Sideris
Suma Ikeuchi
Melody Jue
Carlos Morton
Ruth Hellier
Christina McCarthy
Shana Moulton
Ken Hiltner
Bridget L Coggins
Casey Walsh
Xiaowei Zheng
Ben Olguin
Jeannine DeLombard
Mireille Miller-Young
Janet Afary
Elinor Mason
E. Cook
Hannah Wohl
Sarah Thebaud
Carol Lansing
Randolph Bergstrom
Andrés Consoli
Andrew Griffin
Daniel Reeve
Christina Vagt
Sylvester Ogbechie
Nelson Lichtenstein
Maxwell Millar-Blanchaer
Adrienne Edgar
Jim Kearney
Jeffrey Hoelle
Diane Fujino
D. Inés Casillas
Giancarlo Tursi
Daniel Masterson
Cherrie Moraga
JoAnn Kuchera-Morin
Roger Freedman
Denis Labutin
Leander Anderegg
Wendy Wiseman
Ya Zuo
Stefanie Tcharo
Terrance Wooten
Birge Huisgen-Zimmermann
Kenneth Goodearl
Eric Masanet
Liz Carlisle
Richard Flacks
Marianne Mithun
Katie Moore
Tristan Bridges
Laurel Brehm
Eric W. Campbell
Cristina Venegas
John W. Du Bois
stephen proulx