Quick Take
With a graduate student strike on its third day Wednesday and next steps uncertain, UC Santa Cruz administrators announced that instruction would remain online through Friday. “This decision was made in full recognition of the impact on many aspects of instruction," a campus message read, "particularly labs and studios, and also plans for examinations.”
Classes at UC Santa Cruz will remain remote the rest of the week, university administrators said Wednesday, as a graduate student strike stretched into its third day.
“In the interest of providing clarity and as much predictability as possible, we have decided to continue with remote instruction for Thursday and Friday, May 23 and 24,” they wrote in a message to campus. “This decision was made in full recognition of the impact on many aspects of instruction, particularly labs and studios, and also plans for examinations.”
School officials first announced Monday that classes would move online, after pro-Palestine demonstrators from the UCSC encampment for Palestine blocked the main entrance to campus.
United Auto Workers 4811, the union representing 48,000 graduate student workers across the University of California’s 10 campuses and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, voted to strike last week, alleging the university has failed to resolve unfair labor practices related to how it has handled the safety and free speech rights of UC student encampments. The union includes academic student employees, researchers and postdoctoral fellows.
The union’s executive board, using the “stand-up” strike model, called on UCSC members to be the first among the campuses to strike. At UCSC, there are more than 2,200 workers represented by UAW 4811. UAW union unit chair Rebecca Gross estimated that about 1,500 student workers are participating in the strike at UCSC this week.
Instead of calling on all members to strike immediately, the “stand-up” model calls on specific groups of workers, in this case individual UC campuses, to strike. The union hasn’t announced which campus will be next, but said in a statement that “tens of thousands of workers at other campuses are preparing to strike.”
In the meantime, the California Public Employment Relations Board is reviewing unfair labor practice charges filed by the UC and by UAW 4811 against each other. The university also filed for injunctive relief and asked the board to order the union to stop its strike.
Legal counsel for the board, J. Felix De La Torre, told Lookout the union had until 4 p.m. Wednesday to file a response to the UC’s request.
“This means the board will begin deliberations Friday morning,” he said. “So we could still have a decision by the end of the week, or possibly early next week.”
A Palestine solidarity encampment, led by the UCSC Students for Justice in Palestine group, is on Day 22 since students first occupied the Quarry Plaza in the middle of campus. Encampment organizers negotiated with campus administrators for several days on terms to disband the encampment, but broke off talks after failing to reach an agreement.
On Monday, students relocated the encampment to the corner across the street from UAW 4811’s picketing corner at the High Street and Bay Drive intersection – the main university entrance.
Students involved in the encampment — which is separate from the graduate student strike — told Lookout on Monday that they hadn’t had additional talks with administrators on their demands, including a call for a cease-fire in Gaza and divestment. They also said they didn’t know if they would continue to stay at the encampment without reaching an agreement beyond the end of the spring quarter on June 13.
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