Quick Take
The University of California system – and UC Santa Cruz in particular – is not treating its graduate student workers fairly and is committing illegal, anti-labor actions, writes UCSC graduate student worker and labor union organizer Rebecca Gross. Student workers across the 10 UC campuses are being punished, she writes, for the spring labor and Palestinian solidarity strikes that upended campus life.
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The labor strike that disrupted life on University of California campuses this past spring has faded into a memory, but many student workers continue to feel its effects. That’s because UC administrators have started punishing those of us who participated.
This is illegal because we are still waiting for the Public Employment Relations Board — the state body with sole jurisdiction over this kind of labor dispute — to determine the legality of our strike. We expect that decision in the fall.
The administration is retaliating quietly by garnishing workers’ paychecks, attempting to fire workers without just cause and denying qualified workers future employment for striking.
No one is reporting on this. The media trucks and reporters have moved on to other stories. That, we believe, has emboldened administrators at both the UC Office of the President — which represents all 10 UC campuses — and also UC Santa Cruz administrators to commit what my coworkers and I assert are illegal, anti-labor actions.
This is an old tactic. It’s in the university’s best interest to intimidate us to prevent us from striking in the future. We feel this is worth fighting back against.
Workers at other UC campuses are dealing with retaliation, too. But UC Santa Cruz workers are facing unique forms of repression. So far, we are one of the only campuses we know where administrators are trying to fire workers for striking.
These workers received notices of the university’s intent to dismiss them on Aug. 5. We don’t know why administrators targeted the “fired four.” Perhaps this was to make an example of them and instill fear in the rest of us. We are currently working to get these workers rehired by providing evidence that the university did not have just cause to fire them.
I’m a graduate worker at UC Santa Cruz, and an elected officer with UAW 4811, the union that represents 48,000 academic student employees across the UC system. In my three years at UCSC, I’ve seen the UC administration repeatedly try to punish labor action and free speech.
Our recent spring 2024 strike over the repression of free speech and unsafe workplaces is just one example. Let’s review the details. On May 15, academic workers across the UC authorized a strike. This was in response to the university’s repression of free speech and Palestine-solidarity activism. Two weeks earlier, outside Zionist agitators attacked more than two dozen protesters at UCLA in the early hours of April 30. The UCLA administration used the attacks on protesters to dismantle the encampment there. The administration called in riot police, which resulted in the arrest of 132 peaceful protesters, including UAW members, some of whom were injured.
In treating its workers in such a way, the UC committed multiple serious unfair labor practices, which undermined the contract negotiated between the university and our union. Workers across the state were incensed by this. We wanted the university to honor its own policies on speech and protest, instead of arresting, beating and prosecuting our coworkers and our students for taking a moral stand.
So we decided to wield our power as workers to force administrators to listen.
That’s when we decided to strike. UCSC workers were the first to walk off the job on May 20, a testament to our well-organized workforce. Then, as the UC administration continued to duck and dodge meaningful negotiations with the union, workers at five other campuses joined the strike. We wanted to pressure the university to stop its repression and resolve its unfair labor practices.
That didn’t seem like asking too much. But administrators continued to repress peaceful protests.
The UC-wide budget for policing this past spring cost $29 million. That’s an eight-figure sum that a cash-starved, budget-crunching university could have spent on scholarships, student housing or academic research.
Instead, university leaders chose to spend it on paying police to attack its own students, faculty and staff.
Here in Santa Cruz, administrators cracked down hard. They ordered law enforcement to remove the blockade and encampment students had sustained for a month. Police arrived around midnight on May 31, which resulted in 122 arrests. One UAW worker lost consciousness during her arrest and had a concussion-related stroke two days later. The aftermath of that injury continues to affect her life.
The UC system also repressed legally protected labor action this past spring. The UC did not negotiate with workers. Rather, it shopped around for a friendly legal forum to try to break the strike.
After the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) denied two requests for a restraining order, the university bolted to Orange County and asked a conservative Superior Court judge to halt the strike. The judge agreed on June 7.
The judge’s order ended our labor action. Workers went back to work and this should have been the end of the matter.
Campus operations should have resumed business as usual, and that’s what the UC would like the public to think has taken place. But instead, this quiet retribution is happening.
I, along with hundreds of my coworkers at UCSC and thousands across all the UC campuses, have received written warning letters throughout the summer claiming our strike constitutes “insubordination” and jeopardizes “the university’s ability to accurately align work performed with pay.” These warnings, we are told, are on our personnel files and open us up to future discipline.
Also, more than 50 UCSC workers who applied for jobs to complete outstanding work from spring quarter were barred from being hired for these positions because they had been on strike. I’m one of these workers, and after we all connected about our concern over this, we filed a collective grievance. Earlier this summer, our union also filed another unfair labor practice charge against the UC for discriminating against workers for strike activity.
The UC Office of the President has also spent the summer docking wages directly from hundreds of workers’ paychecks across all the UC campuses. Some of these workers weren’t even on strike, yet they are losing $700-$2,000 for the weeks the strike occurred. That is money graduate students — who are not paid a lot to begin with — need to survive and afford the high cost of living in California.
All of these acts of retaliation are, we believe, explicitly illegal.
The Office of the President could still come to the table to settle the unfair labor practice charges our union has filed, but administrators refuse to admit they’ve done anything wrong. We, meanwhile, maintain that our strike was legal and the UC should not be taking any action against us. It’s the Public Employment Relations Board’s job to determine the legality of our strike.
Our union and the university do agree about one thing.
In the warning letter many of us received, the university acknowledges the work we “perform for the institution is essential to the success of the university, its students, our faculty and the broader community.” Indeed, we are essential workers who keep this university running. This is why we’re so appalled to see the university treat us with such disdain and disrespect.
And we think you should be, too.
If you’re as upset as we are about the retaliation we’re seeing at UC Santa Cruz, help us voice that disappointment by contacting the UCSC administration. Tell UCSC to treat its workers and students justly and with dignity.
As we await the PERB ruling, we are also inviting unions and activist groups to write letters in solidarity with us. Email elected union officers on our campus to share your support.
Rebecca Gross is a graduate worker getting her doctoral degree literature department at UC Santa Cruz and is the current UAW 4811 unit chair of academic student employees at UC Santa Cruz. Follow her @becsgross for her takes on organizing and academia.