Academic workers call “standup strike” across UC system
First Up: UC Santa Cruz
It didn’t take long for the newly consolidated UAW 4811 to flex its muscles. The result of a merger in March of two academic worker unions in the University of California system, its local number is symbolic. The 48 refers to the 48,000 members represented by the unions, and the 11 is for the eleven campuses on which the members work.
Following the foolish and anti-democratic decision of the UC administration to dismantle the UCLA pro-Palestine encampment, on the heels of police and campus security forces standing by and watching without intervention the ugly attacks on the peaceful encampment by Zionist thugs, and then arresting two hundred student protestors, UAW 4811 denounced the actions, filed unfair labor practice charges with the Public Employment Relations Board, and called a strike vote of its membership.
“At the heart of this is our right to free speech and peaceful protest,” said UAW 4811 President Rafael Jaime. “If members of the academic community are maced and beaten down for peacefully demonstrating on this issue, our ability to speak up on all issues is threatened.” (See Local 4811 video statement here.)
Powerful affirmation
The result was a powerful 79% affirmation by the nearly 20,000 members who voted to authorize their version of a “standup strike”—the tactic used to great effect by their sibling UAW members last year against the Big Three auto manufacturing corporations. A “standup strike” gives union leadership the authority to organize rolling strikes across different locations, rather than the usual everyone out at once approach.
The university administration, rather than acknowledging its central responsibility for crushing the free speech rights of the student protestors and consequently for causing the strike vote, condemned the union’s response because it “sets a dangerous precedent that would introduce non-labor issues into labor agreements.”
The union is demanding amnesty for arrested students and faculty, and UC pension fund divestment from companies with ties to Israel involved in war production.
New stage: political strikes
The union has some firm, if not unchallengable, legal standing for the strike on unfair labor practice grounds. Beyond legal quibbles over the strike’s basis, a broader implication is the rise of political strikes as a possible new weapon in the fledging Labor for Palestine movement. The politicization of the labor movement—with the UAW only one of many international unions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza—and especially Local 4811’s actions, represents a new stage in the resurrection of the strike weapon over the past half dozen years by sectors of the American working class. While common in other countries, political strikes have been extremely rare in the United States.
First up: UC Santa Cruz
The first strike is taking place at UC Santa Cruz, with more waiting in the wings. As with the strike against the auto companies last fall, the union leadership is not giving away the location of the next one.
It's probably not a coincidence that, as Jaime has noted elsewhere, UAW 4811 contains more DSA members than any other union local in the country. UC Santa Cruz DSA member Jeb Purucker told California Red, “A lot of the UAW cadre are members, so it will definitely be a DSA-heavy affair.” He also said that the chapter has already run an art build, and it is going to be printing and distributing community support signs, organizing picket line turnout, as well as putting together a community support march on Friday.
How you can help
As things are moving fast, the most important ways to help are still in process of development, but here’s what we know. If you are in Santa Cruz, the picket lines will be up and running from 8 am to 5 pm; come on by to the main entrance to campus. UAW will hold a noon rally Monday May 20.
Pass a resolution of support in your DSA chapter: here is a template.
More information will be available by Thursday, when the union is holding a mass phone call at 7 pm Pacific time. To register click here.
The national DSA will be coordinating a strike fund and food donations, but has yet to post a link. You can donate to the strike fund when it goes online.
