University Workers on Strike.
TLDR: My union has called for a strike, starting Monday, Nov 14.
I am not an official representative of the union but these are my personal thoughts, and my reasons for striking, with links to our official UAW platform.
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. But as greater and greater demands are placed on our work as researchers and educators, we are falling into rent burden and poverty, and suffer unjust treatment by our employers.
We cannot provide the level of research and quality of education that WE WANT to offer our colleagues and our students in these conditions.
Therefore we are demanding:
Wages and raises that meet or beat inflation.
Making the University-owned housing AFFORDABLE.
Increasing access too and affordability of sustainable transit options for commuters
Enshrining protections for workers against bullying and harassment from their supervisors
Among other demands, which can be found here.
Undergraduates at the University of California can help us out! Check out @ undergradsforCOLA on Instagram
Community members can donate to the Strike Pay Fund. As we strike, the university is allowed to withhold our pay for work we are refusing to perform. The Union provides a small stipend to striking workers who are actively supporting the picket line (as I will be).
Keep up on social media and amplify the voices of our union (Santa Barbara’s is included here but there are others, and I do not attend the SB campus personally)
Write to (YOUR PERSONAL) representatives in the California Legislature, as well as the leadership of the University of California, in support of the strike and our demands.
IF YOU DONT LIVE IN CALIFORNIA: In addition to donating and amplifying the movement on social media, look at universities in your state. They’re looking at us right now. Many academic workers have unionized, following our example, over the past YEAR. This is a young movement that will live or die in the near future… and your support–even if it’s just encouragement–can give it power! Contact the local unions for workers like me and voice your support. Contact University administration and local political leaders to encourage them to support academic workers’ rights and compensation. And when academic workers go on strike, show your support with donations, vocal encouragement, and even volunteer on the picket line.
Please reblog this! Talk to people about it.
Below the cut, some more personal explanations.
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