Union strikes at the University of California (UC), in response to the schools’ handling of recent pro-Palestinian student protests, are expanding to three more campuses in the system.
UAW 4811, the largest union in the UC system, announced on Instagram that UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara would begin their strikes on Monday. UC Irvine will join on Wednesday.
“We are asking UC to join its academic community on the right side of history,” said Joyce Chan, neuroscience postdoctoral researcher and postdoctoral registration secretary for UAW 4811 at UC San Diego. “We were beaten and arrested for asking for peace and exercising our right to freedom of expression.”
“To stop the spread of this strike, the UC needs to make serious progress in resolving these ULPs [unfair labor practices]starting with dropping all criminal and disciplinary charges against our co-workers who were arrested for peacefully protesting,” Chan added.
The strikes began at UC Santa Cruz on May 2 and expanded to UCLA and UC Davis last week. In total, five campuses representing more than 31,000 union members will be on strike.
The strike was authorized after members were angered by the schools’ responses to the pro-Palestinian protests that roiled their campuses, particularly at UCLA.
Several students and union members were arrested for their involvement in the protests.
UCLA saw one of the most violent outbreaks amid the nationwide demonstrations, when counter-protesters attacked pro-Palestinian activists, with police taking hours to respond.
“We are disheartened that the UAW continues to publicly escalate its illegal strike, violating the no-strike clause of its contracts and encouraging its members to disrupt and harm our students’ ability to successfully navigate final exams and other critical end-of-year activities. year,” said UC. said in a statement on Friday.
The school system also said at the time that it expected the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to impose an injunction on the union to stop “this illegal, precedent-setting action.”
But on Monday, PERB denied the request, allowing the union to continue its actions.
“It is encouraging to see that PERB has once again complied with the law. It’s time for UC to face reality,” said Rafael Jaime, a doctoral student at UCLA and president of UAW 4811.
“We said last week that if UC did not make progress in addressing serious unfair labor practices, up to three more campuses could be called to speak out. Instead, UC chose another week of legal wrangling, and now UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine and UC San Diego are leaving. If management wants work to resume, they should address their gross unfair labor practices and stop wasting public time and resources on legal maneuvers.
The strikes are happening in the last week of classes for UC students before the end of the spring semester.
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