Quick Take
Thursday's decision clears the way for graduate student workers at UC Santa Cruz to continue their four-day-old strike over what they say was the unfair treatment of student protesters in pro-Palestine encampments at other UC campuses. UCSC officials said they planned to resume in-person instruction on Tuesday.
A state labor board Thursday rejected the University of California’s request for an injunction against its graduate student union to order it to stop striking. The decision opens the door to a widening job action, with two other UC campuses set to begin striking next week.
United Auto Workers 4811, which represents 48,000 graduate student workers at the UC’s 10 campuses and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, authorized a strike last week over what they say is the school’s unfair treatment of pro-Palestine protesters at several campuses.
Using the stand-up model, the union’s leadership first called on UC Santa Cruz members to strike starting this past Monday.
On Tuesday, UC officials filed their request with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) for an injunction to end the strike. After UAW 4811 filed its response Wednesday to the UC’s request, the board deliberated and announced its decision to reject the UC’s request Thursday evening.
Board counsel J. Felix De La Torre wrote in a letter to both the UC and the union that PERB “presently declines to pursue an injunction.”
He wrote that the university “has not established that injunctive relief is ‘just and proper,'” adding that “the board, however, shall leave open UC’s request in the event it learns of evidence or facts to support a finding that injunctive relief is just and proper.”
The labor board is a state agency that oversees collective bargaining laws and contracts involving public-sector workers, including employees of California’s public schools, colleges and universities and employees of the State of California. While the board is not a court, it does carry out courtlike proceedings to investigate and issue decisions on charges of unfair labor practices.
De La Torre told Lookout that the board rarely releases detailed explanations for how it comes to decisions on requests like this. PERB decisions in circumstances like this are often just a few sentences long.
“I know it’s frustrating,” he said. “Because people often don’t understand the basis for the decision.”
UCSC union unit chair Rebecca Gross told Lookout Thursday that UAW 4811 expected the board to reject the UC’s request for injunctive relief. She said the students intend to continue their strike.
“We’re relieved, but also, this is in line with how we’ve been thinking about this, and of our plan to go ahead with standing up on strike,” Gross said.
In a statement, Rachel Zaentz, spokesperson for the UC Office of the President, didn’t address the board’s decision to reject the injunction request but noted that the labor board issued a complaint against the union saying the job action violated a no-strike clause in the student workers’ contracts.
“We are pleased that PERB has issued a complaint against UAW for engaging in a strike that is contrary to the no-strike clauses in their collective bargaining agreements and without providing adequate notice to the University,” she wrote via email. “We are eager to see a quick and just resolution to this matter.”
The board scheduled an informal settlement hearing over the complaint for Friday at 10 a.m.
The board’s rejection of the UC’s request to end the strike comes as the five-day-old job action by graduate student workers, which began Monday at UC Santa Cruz, is set to extend to two other UC campuses.
Student workers at UCLA and UC Davis are preparing to join the picket lines starting Tuesday. The two campuses have a combined total of than 12,000 graduate students who are members of the union, according to Gross.
UCSC union officials have estimated that 1,500 of the school’s more than 2,200 graduate students have joined the strike, causing some professors to cancel sessions and UCSC to move all classes to remote instruction this week. On Thursday evening, UCSC officials said they planned to resume in-person instruction on Tuesday.
UAW 4811 contends that its week-old strike was legal because the students’ grievances are related to how the university handled protecting the safety and free speech rights of UC students and employees during pro-Palestine protests and encampments while at their workplace, or on UC property.
In their request to the labor board for an injunction, UC officials argued that the strike was illegal because the union’s allegations of unfair labor practices are based on trying to get the university to agree to “politically motivated demands” rather than workplace-related issues.
In order to get the injunction approved, De La Torre said the UC had to prove two things. First, university administrators had to show that UAW 4811 violated the law. Then it had to show there would be “irreparable” harm done because of the strike.
In an interview before the board released its decision, De La Torre noted that the UC would likely have a heavy lift to have its request granted. “It’s extraordinary in the sense that they’re asking us to take action against the party where there hasn’t been an official finding of wrongdoing,” he said. “So this is why it’s such a high standard.”
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