Thread by @payusmoreucsc

Today, UC Santa Cruz, “UC’s most striking campus,” is the first to “stand up” in UAW 4811’s ULP strike. We walk out knowing the heat is concentrated on us, expecting admin to be more aggressive than in 2022, while also knowing there is a tidal wave of support behind us.

Friday’s announcement, that UCSC would walk out first and alone, has spurred much deliberation around the state and among those following at a distance. These necessary debates will give rise to growing strategic clarity among UC workers.

Crucial questions concerning rank and file leadership, direction, and organization exist here, too, and need to be confronted head-on. Indeed, there are clear echoes of the early stages of the stand up strategy in auto.

But in other ways, the higher ed stand up strike is vastly different. We ought to learn from auto and parse out the differences that set it apart from our struggle. Firstly, why Santa Cruz?

We can’t speak for the situation elsewhere, but here there was intensive department and campus level deliberation about taking labor action already underway on our campus in the week before the SAV announcement.

This undoubtedly gave us a head start in building up dept-level strike commitments.

Even before the loathsome actions by the UCLA administration, dozens of departments had met to discuss how we, as organized academic workers, might respond to the encampment movement and the call from the PGFTU. workersinpalestine.org/news/strike-fo…

We walked off the job on May 1 in solidarity with that call and had plans to determine next steps.

This followed months of self-organization in several STEM departments, where workers have been tracing DoD funding and organizing refusals. labornotes.org/blogs/2024/05/…

It is clear, for one, that this influenced the Joint Council’s demand for transitional funding for researchers who wish to opt out of war.

docs.google.com/document/d/1VB…

Further back, UCSC weathered the six weeks of the 2022 strike with tremendous resolve, and was ready for more: 80% of workers here voted to continue the fight rather than ratify. We’ve since resisted UC’s attempted clawbacks, misclassifications, and the imposition of timesheets.

Timesheets are set to be a major flashpoint in the current struggle, as UC seeks to identify and punish strikers more effectively than last time.

All academic unions at Santa Cruz have opposed the timesheets, sending a unified letter to campus admin about the current attempt to use them and other “attendance tracking” measures for strikebreaking.

docs.google.com/document/u/4/d…

Where are we today? Apprehension also defined the lead up to the strike in auto last year, and the momentum built early on in the strike was hard won.

Rank and file workers, ever cognizant of the conditions of possibility in their plants, acted collectively to strengthen the strike, even before being called to “stand up.”

labornotes.org/2023/09/work-e…

Our union siblings in auto show us what is possible, and academic workers will take advantage of openings that exist on their campuses. This may range from picketing construction and delivery sites to slowing down or altering their own work obligations.

Direct action elsewhere can only bolster the force of the UCSC strike during these first days, when full-blown intimidation and repression from the UC is more than likely.

But as our campus prepares to lock in for the long haul, we face up to UC’s entire repressive force.

It should be stated clearly: the great merit of the stand up strategy is the ability to immediately fire back. If the UC takes a swing at us, other campuses need to be called to stand up at once.

The strike beginning today at UCSC, the first of its kind in the current wave of struggle for Palestine, is the first large-scale backlash UC will face for the violence it unleashed on the UCLA encampment. They weren’t dissuaded from repeating the dose at UCSD or Irvine.

One may assume that the administrative class at other major university systems, and perhaps higher offices than that, are consulting on how to break this strike, fearful of the precedent it sets.

No one should underestimate how jealously they will defend their prerogative to discipline protests as they see fit, and moreover invest the endowment wherever they want. Our strike is a direct assault on both.

Much is unprecedented about what begins today. A strike in solidarity with Palestinian liberation, and with those fighting for it here in the US, was scarcely imaginable a month ago. The stand up strategy is new in our sector, and will require adjustments.

We stand up at UC Santa Cruz, eagerly awaiting our comrades around the state. We know that workers across the state take their own initiative. When we fight, we win. Amnesty for all protesters. Divestment and disclosure now. Transitional funding for researchers.