A ‘Historic Moment’ for Campus Solidarity

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from In These Times:


A ‘Historic Moment’ for Campus Solidarity
University of California grad students will join service workers on the picket lines in a rare sympathy strike.

BY Rebecca Burns


In a labor action rarely seen on university campuses, graduate student employees in the University of California system announced on Wednesday that they plan to strike alongside university service workers walking off the job next week due to allegations of illegal retaliation against members of their union. After members of UAW 2865, which represents 16,000 UC graduate teaching and research assistants, voted to authorize a strike last week, the union pledged Wednesday to join the picket lines when service and patient care workers represented by AFSCME 3299 stage a one-day walkout on November 20. Graduate student organizers call the decision to stage a sympathy strike alongside other campus workers a “historic moment” for campus solidarity that comes in the midst of contentious contract negotiations between the university’s largest unions and the UC administration.

“Academic workers standing in solidarity with service workers will send a clear message to UC management that its employees will not tolerate intimidation from bosses or the decline in working conditions,” says Marco Antonio Rosales, a union steward and graduate instructor at UC Davis. The California Nurses Association and UC Santa Cruz’s Skilled Crafts Unit have also announced that their members will strike in sympathy with AFSCME.

Nearly $1 billion in budget cuts over the past five years have had a tumultuous effect on the UC system and have strained relations with students, who have seen steep tuition hikes, and staff, who have endured wage and hiring freezes. Contract talks between the university and AFSCME, which represents 22,000 employees across the UC system, have been deadlocked for more than a year, with the union contending that the university has forced through several rounds of painful pay cuts on top of already-low wages (according to the union, 99 percent of service workers are already eligible for some form of public assistance).

Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who was selected as the new UC president this summer and addressed the Board of Regents for the first time yesterday, has been charged with charting a path out of economic crisis for the university. Unions say they want that to ensure that that path includes fair pay and conditions for campus workers. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15885/uc_grad_student_employees_declare_solidarity_with_service_workers/

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