#spreadthestrike

[exigencelost]

Since you offered to answer questions, what is the striking for? Like, what kickstarted this and what’re the demands?

Great question. The initial demand, and still the central demand of all the strikes, is for a cost of living adjustment (a COLA) for grad student instructors at UC Santa Cruz. Grad student instructors across the entire UC system are paid subliving wages that have not remotely kept up with the rate of inflation for the last? I’m not sure? Like twenty years? It’s not possible to pay rent in California for what they make, and for sure it’s not possible to live in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area (which includes Santa Cruz) and which has some of the highest rents in the world. Pretty much all grad student instructors throughout the UC system are rent-burdened, meaning that more than 30% of their income goes to rent. Some pay closer to 50% or 70% of their income on rent.

 From Pay Us More UC Berkeley’s FAQ page, with emphasis added:

The COLA [cost of living adjustment] movement started at UC Santa Cruz in September of 2019. Graduate students at UC Santa Cruz gave notice to their university administration that they wanted a cost of living adjustment of $1,412 a month to address their rising housing costs and overall cost of living. After exhausting official channels and other means for communicating their concerns, they announced a grading strike on December 9, 2019. They are still withholding fall and winter grades. In response to intimidation and threats of discipline from UC Santa Cruz, they are engaged in a full graduate student strike as of February 10th. From the first days of the strike, graduate students faced an excessive police presence (including police officers brought in from across the Bay Area and other UC campuses), resulting in arrests and injuries to peaceful student protestors. On the evening of February 14th, faculty and graduate students received letters from UC Santa Cruz Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer which threatened mass dismissal of teaching assistants who failed to submit grades, end the strike, and return to work by February 21st. Graduate students have pledged to continue the strike in the face of these grave threats and mass firing of around 80 striking workers on February 28th. You can learn more about what launched the movement at UC Santa Cruz and see a timeline of events on their website.

So, the strike started in Santa Cruz as a demand for COLA. After the violent retaliation of the university in SC, demands got added: demilitarization of UC police, removal of the no-strikes clause from the grad students’ union contract, and the immediate reinstatement of the strikers who were fired. The strike has spread to half the UC campuses now, and each striking campus has slightly different demands, but they all agree on the core demands of 

 A Cost of Living Adjustment proportional to the local housing market of each campus, without any layoffs or tuition increases

The demilitarization of UCPD

The reinstatement of fired strikers without further retaliation from the university

In addition, UC Berkeley strikers are demanding that the university stop charging its students above-market price for housing (this is above-market price for downtown Berkeley and it’s no joke.)

UC Davis strikers are demanding an increase in funding for Ethnic Studies and that the university divest from Israeli apartheid in compliance with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement

But, again, the central and uniting demand of the strike is for a cost of living adjustment for all grad student employees in the University of California system. 

[exigencelost]

Strikers at UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara keep taking over dining halls and opening them to the public so that food insecure folks can eat for free and the universities keep...calling the cops and throwing away all the food...hey UC Regents this is a bad look

[exigencelost]

From the @payusmoreucb on twitter:  Fight back against UC Berkeley's "Big Give". Donate instead to the Cal COLA Wildcat Strike fund! http://tinyurl.com/UCBStrikeFund Read our full statement on The Big Give: https://payusmoreucb.com/support/statement-on-the-big-give… Image text available under read-more and at second link above. 

[Image text:

CalCOLA Statement on UC Berkeley “Big Give”, Launch of Strike Fund

Each year, UC Berkeley celebrates its increasing privatization and commodification of education by soliciting private donations for a 24-hour period they call the “Big Give”. During this time, University administration uses student advocacy as a marketing tool while they rake in millions of dollars contingent upon the demands of wealthy donors. This year, instead of resigning ourselves to this twisted, undemocratic, and neoliberalized vision of “public” education, we are asking you to fight back against this system and contribute to the CalCOLA strike fund. These funds will be allocated for legal fees, docked pay for strikers, food and organizing supplies for actions, to promote equity, and ensure accessibility at our events, assemblies, and meetings.

Recent decades have seen a shift in the funding and operation of our “public” universities. The State of California has decreased its contributions to the UC from $23,000 per student to $8,000 over the last four decades. The UC is now funded more by student tuition and private donors than by public funds. We see the University prioritize its relationship to private interests over listening to its students, its workers, and the public. This system perpetuates the racial and economic injustices of the past and present into the future as it gives those in privileged groups the ability to determine who is included and excluded from our public institutions.

We cannot accept this. We recognize these structural problems are protected and reinforced by a toxic culture in the UC administration. We cite the California State Auditor’s assessment of the Office of the President:

“Our report concludes that the Office of the President has amassed substantial reserve funds, used misleading budgeting practices, provided its employees with generous salaries and atypical benefits, and failed to satisfactorily justify its spending on systemwide initiatives. [...] Correspondence between the Office of the President and the campuses shows that the Office of the President inappropriately reviewed campuses’ survey responses, which resulted in campuses making changes to those responses prior to submitting them to us...”

...the Office of the President’s actions during this audit have caused us to question whether it will make a genuine effort to change.”

(auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2016-130.pdf)

The poisonous combination of these structural failures and the administration’s mismanagement and lack of ethics have left graduate students in the UC system no choice but to act. On Monday, March 16, graduate students at UC Berkeley will go on strike to demand the University provide a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) that will bring graduate students out of rent burden. Beyond the well-being of current graduate students, this demand is required to ensure higher education is accessible and equitable, and truly serves as a public good. Graduate students across the UC are putting their bodies upon the gears and the wheels of the administration in order to stop this dishonorable higher education system. We are asking you to support us in our collective struggle.

Please donate to COLA organizer strike funds listed below, and from Wednesday March 11 at 9pm to Thursday March 12 at 9pm, and promote the hashtags #CalBigGive, #cola4all, and #colastrike on social media to show the administration and the public that you stand with our COLA strikers. We have immediate need for funding to ensure universal access at COLA events and meetings, and to provide security for our most vulnerable strikers.

Current Strike Funds for Wildcat Strikers:

UC Berkeley: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-fund-for-striking-workers-at-ucb UC Santa Cruz: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-fund-for-striking-workers-at-ucsc UC Santa Barbara: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ucsb-cola-campaign

In solidarity, CalCOLA

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”

-Mario Savio, 2 Dec 1964, Sproul Plaza

/end Image text]

[exigencelost]

In regards to COLA/the UC strike, I just got an acceptance to a grad program at UCLA. I’ve been reading about this situation and I have two, kind of personal questions I guess. 1. Would an acceptance mean crossing the picket line? And 2. How can I show my support for the strike?

So, for one thing, UCLA isn’t striking yet. I suspect they will be soon, but I can’t predict their exact timeline. I believe they’re using the same process as UCB, where they’ll have a strike vote once they have ten departments declare themselves as strike-ready, but I have no idea how many departments have done so as of right now. 

That said, I think it’s pretty safe to assume there’ll be a strike at UCLA within the next month.

To be clear: I’m an undergrad who goes to Berkeley. UCLA isn’t my school and UAW isn’t my union, so I don’t want to weigh in as too much of a moral authority here, but:  I struggle to imagine how *accepting an offer of admission* could be constructed as strikebreaking or crossing the picket line. If UCLA goes on strike and is STILL on strike when you start your program in the fall, and you don’t join the strike at that point, THEN you’d for sure be scabbing. But if you join the strike, you’re striking. So I think the question to ask yourself is, are you ready to join the strike? Of course, the strike may well be over by then, but it also may not. If you go to UCLA in the fall and your fellow grad students ask for your solidarity, are you prepared to give it to them? Do you have a plan in place for what the consequences of that might be?

As far as how you can support the strike, I recommend reaching out to the UCLA COLA organizers on Twitter or on Facebook or on Instagram, or sign up for their mailing list (and then hopefully when you do get sent an email you can reply to it with a question).  Like I said, I don’t go to UCLA, so they might have something that a fall-admit can do that would be specifically helpful to them! There are things that everyone can do: spread word of the strike and its causes, share news articles, donate to the fired UCSC strikers if you have spare cash, spread this form around so that people can lend help to the UCSC folks who might lose their student or work visas. But I’d check in with the organizers in LA for anything more specific. 

If anyone reading this is a grad student at UCLA and has a better answer, please say so!

[exigencelost]

I do fully support the UC strike, but I can't seem to find information on how this is affecting the undergrad students. Are they going to have their graduations delayed due to a lack of classes/grades/etc? Or is there a law somewhere regarding this? Thanks!

From the FAQ page on the website of the UCSC strikers, with emphasis added:On graduation:

Contact your TA if you are graduating this quarter.

Your grades will be left blank for now, but they will be updated as soon as the strike ends. The official processing of your graduation may be delayed until the grades are entered, but will be processed once the grades are received. Your graduation date will still be recorded as Fall 2019. No action is required on your part. If you need your graduation to be officially processed sooner, let your TA know and they can submit your grade so as not to delay the official processing of your graduation.

The administration does not have to let the effects of this fall on undergraduate students. This is a political decision beyond your control and you do not have to be penalized for it. Contact your academic advisor if you are worried about this.

On transcripts for application to grad school:

You will still have access to your transcripts. Even if they were turned in as normal, these grades will not even appear on your transcripts (this will appear as something like “currently taking”). You are turning in unofficial transcripts right now and you will turn in official transcripts once you accept your offer from graduate school.

On undergraduate financial aid:

For the vast majority of students, the answer is no [the strike will not affect financial aid].  The only students whose financial aid may be affected are those whose financial aid disbursement is subject to quarterly review due to financial aid probation. This is a small percentage of students. If you are one of those students, please contact your financial aid advisor and your TA (you do not have to identify yourself as being on probation – simply let your TA know that you need your grades released). Your TA can submit your grade to ensure that your financial aid will not be affected by the strike. In the unlikely event that a student’s financial aid is delayed due to the strike, those who live on campus and have a meal plan will be able to maintain their housing and meal plan even if their aid is delayed. For those who live off campus and rely on their financial aid to pay rent, the financial aid office has an emergency advance program that these students can draw from to pay their bills – in addition to slug support. More information on this program is available here: https://financialaid.ucsc.edu/types-of-aid/loans/ucsc-financial-aid-emergency-advance-program.htmlThe financial aid office has assured us that they will do everything they can to minimize the impact of the strike on undergraduates’ financial aid, including preventing late fees and providing emergency advances.

I’ve included the financial aid bit, even though you didn’t ask for it, because it illustrates that the GSIs are not interested in harming their students and will work with them to protect them from any serious negative consequences of the work stoppage. They are willing to make exceptions where their students need exceptions for financial or other reasons. The strike is a battle against the UC Regents, not against undergraduates.