January 21st – Admin Threatens Workers Taking a Sick Day

January 21, 2020

To: UC Santa Cruz Community

From: Labor Relations, UC Office of the President

Subject: Information about potential sick out

The University has become aware that certain academic student employees (ASEs) may be planning on a sick out on Wednesday, Jan. 22 in order to attend the Regents meeting in San Francisco.

ASEs need to know that this is not an appropriate use of sick leave under the labor contract between the University and the United Auto Workers. Under that contract, ASEs are required to submit a request to use sick leave as soon as the leave becomes known unless it is for an unanticipated illness. The contract also requires an ASE to provide reasonable documentation supporting the use of sick leave if the University requests it.

Please be advised that an ASE who engages in the planned sick out and does not meet their assigned responsibilities may forfeit pay and can be subject to corrective action.

Mission

We are TAs, GSIs, Tutors, Readers, Student Researchers, Fellows, Postdocs, and Academic Researchers at UCSC. We are represented by our union, UAW 4811 (Formerly UAW 2865 and UAW 5810). In 2019/2020, workers at UCSC withheld labor for a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), and in 2022, our statewide union struck for 6 weeks over a COLA, arguing for a 54k base wage for all academic workers with the goal of raising the living conditions of academic workers across the state. Now, we are on strike for Divestment, Disclosure, Transitional funding for researchers, & Amnesty for all protestors.