Thread by @payusmoreucsc

BREAKING: Directly after the Superior Court’s decision to grant a temporary restraining order against our strike, workers at UCSC entered an extensive process of deliberation. This included emergency dept meetings, two campus-wide meetings, and an exhaustive inquiry. Results 🧵

It is difficult to stomach this TRO, particularly given its timing. On our campus, through three weeks of strike action, we had built our leverage ahead of the grading deadline, and had secured the non-submission of at least 12K grades by working with other instructional workers.

The TRO was handed down on the final day of instruction, ahead of finals week. It is probably correct to say that no group within the union had adequately prepared a contingency plan, ourselves included. A lesson learned the hard way.

By Sunday night, we had held meetings in over 20 departments to discuss the developments out of Orange County, and to contribute perspectives about our collective response. At the end of a long campus meeting, those present voted inconclusively about the next step.

A narrow plurality (48% to 45%) at the meeting preferred open defiance to other strategies, and we concluded with a determination to take these options to our departments and firm up our numbers with wider layers of strikers.

In the hour after our campus meeting, we learned that the statewide Joint Council of UAW had voted overwhelmingly to comply with the TRO, meaning that any continued strike action on our campus would be a wildcat.

We have since conducted a rigorous inquiry to determine the appetite of members with current appointments to take labor action, and what they would consider a minimum critical mass for taking such action.

Across two days of outreach and discussion, the results are entirely conclusive. There is not an adequate base to defy the TRO openly and continue strike action. This is, for many, a very painful outcome—and a sobering one for all.

Up until this point, our strike offered a hopeful break with decades of stagnation and orthodoxy within the labor movement on the question of political strikes. The struggle for Palestinian liberation, we argued, was in fact one that could and should be waged in the workplace.

While strike action as such is now off of the table, there is a path forward for collective action. What follows is one strategy workers at UCSC are developing.

We have determined that we have a strong base to pursue, for the first time on our campus, a work-to-rule strategy. We will enforce our workload protections such that we cannot remedy the disruption of the strike in time for the grading deadline and the end of our appointments.

We understand that work-to-rule strategies are, in many ways, more difficult to organize than strikes. They require near-uniform discipline and sometimes attract more pushback from supervisors. To roll it out effectively on our first attempt and in quick time is no trivial task.

But how, after all, can workers catch up on three weeks of missed materials and emails in one week, while also grading all the finals? What about those mandatory cybersecurity trainings that we simply must do right now to be in compliance with university policies?

Grad workers at UCSC are diligent instructors and careful graders, as should be expected at this elite public institution of higher education. We could not, in good conscience, cut corners on what our students deserve.

We also, however, have a healthy regard for our hard-won protections as workers, and never work beyond our contractual protections. We respect our own well-being, and take our sick days when we are unwell. We will not compromise on these basic standards.

If things shake out such that the disruption of three weeks of striking cannot be made up by June 18, we know that faculty, lecturers, and students will understand that this is because UC Labor Relations failed to settle the strike quickly enough.

However, if, on the morning of June 19, workers on Santa Cruz awake with their spring appointments ended and a large quantity of grading not completed, we are willing to go the extra mile for our students.

If our admin wants those grades, and is willing to meet us halfway—perhaps by dropping the charges against UCSC students and workers—we might consider, as a one-time only offer, working beyond our appointment to complete the grading. Let’s see what happens.