Dear COLA comrades,
Thank you for your continued commitment to the COLA campaign and our ongoing grading strike. In our effort to be as transparent as possible, we have openly shared any and all communication between us and the administration. We last heard from UC Labor Relations on December 20, when we received two separate (and contradictory) emails–one from Jennifer Schiffner, Director, Labor Relations (click here to read) and one from Peter Chester, Executive Director, UCOP-Labor Relations (click here to read).
On December 23, we responded to these emails with an open letter titled “A Response to UC Labor Relations and UC Administrators.” In this letter, we maintained that the administration’s refusal to meet with us is voluntary. We consulted with an attorney specializing in labor law who, again, affirmed that there is nothing within the law that prevents the administration from speaking to us, let alone making an offer. Moreover, we pointed to several recent cases of campus-specific negotiations and settlements between UAW 2865 workers, students, and the UC. We also reiterated to the administration our willingness to meet with them as the UAW, as the GSA, and/or as graduate students in general. However, they have refused to come to the table. Click here to read our letter.
We’ve been very clear from the beginning: the strike will end the way it began: any offer made by the administration will be put to a vote by all graduate students. Until then, the call to action remains the same: Do Not Submit. The longer we continue to withhold Fall 2019 grades, the more we disrupt the capacity of the university to function as an institution of higher education. The effects of our withheld labor multiply, rather than dissipate, over time. As it stands, we have received no offer from the administration. It is clear they are making us wait. They hope their stalling tactics will weaken our resolve and splinter our unity, but we are strong. COLA cannot wait and we will not wait.
So, where are we headed? What is our strategy going forward? In many ways, this is an open question that must be decided by strikers, collectively. As representatives of the GSA and officers of the UAW, we will continue to use our roles strategically to advance our shared struggle. However, we do not singularly decide how to escalate this fight.
Over the last several days, graduate workers and students have begun organizing autonomously around a variety of different committees and actions – all meant to build our power, organizational capacity, and to pressure the UC to grant us a COLA. In fact, the end of finals week and the immediate days following were incredibly productive for the COLA campaign at the departmental scale. Department teams across graduate divisions held discussions about the future of the strike and about how energy could be sustained over the holiday break. The opening week of winter quarter will be crucial to sustaining the momentum around COLA on several levels. Continuing the pattern of the December 8 strike assembly and these smaller department discussions, we want to emphasize that mass meetings can be seen as open spaces for collective debate and elaboration of strategy among graduate students. The meetings we have held so far have not been free-for-alls or derailments, but rather carefully structured forums with clear agenda items and ample time to ask questions, weigh different options, and clarify confusions – in short, opportunities to engage, inform, and gain input from as many people as possible to strengthen our overall work. COLA organizers are planning to hold a series of assemblies and focused meetings to concretely assess the current situation with the grading strike and our tactics in the days ahead. Here is a tentative schedule:
We will have a large General Assembly meeting to discuss next steps in Week 1 of the winter quarter — more details to follow soon.
All graduate students are invited to come to the first GSA/UAW Monthly Membership Meeting meeting of the quarter on Tuesday, January 7, 5-8PM at the GSC Fireside lounge. No official decisions regarding COLA will be made at that meeting; we will wait until the General Assembly. But we can debrief, plan, and discuss our options.
IMPORTANT NOTE: UCSC is rolling out UCPath, which has had problems at other campuses. UCPath representatives stated at the GSA meeting on December 3, 2019 that you will receive your pay on January 2nd, not 1st. Click here to read more on the UCPath website. Stay tuned for an upcoming email on UCPath.
If you don’t have your money by the end of the payday on January 2, get in touch with payusmoreucsc@gmail.com. We will fight UCPath with you and have them cut you a same-day check as they promised at the December 3 meeting.*
* As we’ve stated previously in the FAQs (click here to read them), the UC can withhold pay for labor stoppages. However, the UC is legally required to pay us for labor we have done, so this reduction would be at the level of minutes — rather than hours — as long as you have done everything EXCEPT submit the grades. Withholding pay for our labor would be a violation of the contract, which the university cannot do even during our strike. We can address this risk by filing grievances for lost pay. The timing of the strike is advantageous because UCSC is rolling out UCPath, which has had problems at other campuses. We are vigilant about potential missed pay. If you are not paid your full amount at the beginning of January, we recommend you request a same-day check. We also are prepared to file a grievance on your behalf related to lost pay during the UCPath roll out. If you created a spreadsheet of your hours, remember that you are paid for 220 hours. If you produce a document signed by your professor that indicates that you have already done all or close to your hours, it would be illegal for the UC to dock your pay. Remember that our hours fluctuate across the quarter, and it may be the case for some graduate student TAs that they can only really lose pay for a few minutes at this point in the quarter.
Solidarity forever,
Yulia Gilichinskaya
GSA co-president