The Stakes and a Strategy for Success in the Historic University of California
Strike by Members of Black Rose Bay Area and UAW 2865 ---- On November 14, over48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, readers, associate instructors, otherAcademic Student Employees (ASEs), Graduate Student Researchers (GSRs), andpostdoctoral employees across the University of California (UC) launched thelargest coordinated strike the United States's higher education sector has everseen. On the crest of a growing national strike wave, the number of strikers outat the UC dwarfs the size of every other work stoppage since the start of theCOVID-19 pandemic. This strike is 20% larger than 2021's single-day sympathystrike of 40,000 industry-wide workers across Northern California's KaiserPermanente system, and twenty-two times the number of strikers as the samesystem's mental healthcare workers' ten-week long picket lines.The foremost demand-a roughly 125% increase in wages, adjusted annually to thecost of housing-comes out of a basic human need: to work without fear of losingthe roofs over our heads, and in some cases, to gain the ability to secure one inthe first place. Workers across California-and increasingly the nation-face aninsatiable drive by real estate speculators' to wring as much profit from tenantsas they can. Even more, some locales' largest landlords include the UC itself.For example, the UC owns a large share of rental units in Berkeley, California,whose exorbitant rents push up the rest of the local market's housing prices.Local administrators wield the city's impacted markets-and ones found in otheruniversity towns-as a simultaneous bludgeon against demands for more pay and toexpand their real estate empires: if they create more affordable housing, theirstory goes, workers won't need more pay to keep up with soaring rents.The demand to end rent burden through a sizable Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA)began differently than the workshopped and means-tested proposals typicallycrafted by union staffers behind closed doors ahead of bargaining. Rather, COLAcame from rank-and-file workers ourselves who courageously-and without precedentin the UC system-initiated a months-long wildcat strike, beginning in Santa Cruzthen spreading to every campus from as south as San Diego to the northernsuburban farm town of Davis. Although the militant upswell seemed tospontaneously spread, frustrations following an insufficient 2018 bargainingagreement that included annual 3% wage increases for the contract's durationspurred nuclei of rank-and-file workers to organize action directly with theircoworkers and outside UAW 2865's purview.We quickly learned the lengths administrators and our own union leadership wouldgo to bring an end to the strike. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought statewidelockdowns, administrators pledged to fire ASEs who would withhold their labor inthe digital classroom. Campus administrators at UC Santa Cruz made good on thosethreats, firing 41 workers before our systemwide campaign won theirreinstatement. Similarly, UAW 2865's elected leadership repeatedly warned wildcatstrikers to return to our duties, promising to make COLA the central demandduring contract negotiations two years later.Although these compounding pressures and a global pandemic temporarily halted ouraction, efforts of our small but fierce minority of workers were not withoutconsequence. At UC Santa Cruz, every ASE won an effective 10% wage increase,administered through a yearly $2,500 ‘housing supplement'. Elsewhere in thesystem, academic workers won a spate of smaller one-time payments. Perhaps mostimportantly, thousands of student-workers learned our capacity to organize masscollective direct action and saw our colleagues' shared disgust with our livingconditions. We also learned that through our action we could shape the union'sdirection: eschewing a supermajority strike to demand modest gains, our militantminority strike pressured all three unions to put COLA on the UC's bargaining table.This time around, UC student-workers, researchers, and postdoctoral employeesmust hold our leaders to their word. Many of our coworkers will ask how many daysmust we put down our pens and keyboards, stay out of lecture halls and off Zoomclassroom meetings, and return to normal university operations to win a COLA? Theanswer: one day longer than UC administration refuses to bring us out of rent burden.How will we do that?Build rank-and-file power through networks that regularly check with all ourcoworkers to gauge strike fatigue and enthusiasm, share bargaining updates, anddiscuss any future tentative agreements. These networks should remind ourcoworkers, fellow organizers, and ourselves that mutual reliance will sustainlong-term, open-ended strikes. We can do this by making picket signs together,joining the lines as a unified group, writing collective open letters,babysitting each other's children, sharing meals and making sure we have eachother's and our own needs met during the long haul.Exercise rank-and-file power by exerting pressure on the bargaining team torefuse concessions around the COLA demand. We've already seen the power of a Zoomroom full of hundreds of academic workers, admonishing bargaining team memberswho edged too close to compromise. Attend these sessions as a group and makeyourself heard. Similarly, contact the bargaining team members who represent youand make clear that you won't settle for anything less than a COLA.Expand the strike. From its own public transit systems to housing developments toon-campus dining halls, the university's footprint is broad. Organizerank-and-file workers and tenants to take solidaristic collective action at sitesrelated to the UC, like redirecting bus routes, walking off construction sites,halting package deliveries, occupying dining halls, or withholding rent.Raise each other's expectations-for ourselves, for workers across the country andglobe, and for future generations of academic workers. Taking historic actionoffers an example of what a different world looks like, one where we take controlover our collective and individual lives. We show that we can work together andfight for one another that we deserve more than we routinely get.Live the minimal demands. Many groups will pressure us to approve a subparcontract, arguing a 13% wage increase over the next three years is "the best wecan get." We know that's not true. More importantly, we must not make it true:encourage and ensure each other does not return to work without a Cost of LivingAdjustment.We won't be cowed back to the UC's crumbling classrooms and unaffordable housing.We won't be forced to compete with thousands of our students, coworkers, andfriends for the few units the UC's meager wages can cover. We won't allow anyoneto make us believe we-and all working people-deserve less than our bossesroutinely offer. The balance of power is in our favor-now it's on us to wield it.To keep up to date with our members in the Bay Area of California, you can followtheir twitter page at @bayareabrrn or subscribe to their Telegram channel att.me/bayareabrrn.If you enjoyed this article, we recommend our previous reporting on labororganizing at the University of California: Wildcat Strike Launched by UC SantaCruz Graduate Student Workers and this interview with Black Rose militants on theIt's Going Down podcast.26) https://blackrosefed.org/no-cola-no-contract-uc-strike-22/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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