Author: bananaslums

Dear senior administration,

Many of us received student conduct summonses [attached below] today for having apparently “deleted, removed, or altered multiple undergraduate student grades in the Canvas Gradebook” in Fall Quarter. Most strikers have submitted grades. Why administration continues these processes of discipline for use of Canvas, when our Description of Duties do not require the use of Canvas; why we are disciplined as students, when many of us have already been disciplined (fired) in our roles as workers; and why this must continue throughout a global pandemic, appears entirely unnecessary, petty and vindictive. 

This action flies in the face of numerous calls from UCSC and UC-wide faculty, grads, and undergrads, and the wider community, for the administration to cease disciplinary actions. As far back as February 20th, the UCSC Academic Senate passed a resolution that, among other things, calls “for the withdrawal of sanctions against striking and arrested students” [Academic Senate Resolution Bassi and Leiva, attached below]. The day before, the UC-wide Academic Council concluded a statement on the UCSC grad student strike with a resolution that “the University should refrain from punitive action against graduate students during the strike and from retaliation against them once the strike has been concluded.” The San Francisco Chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild deemed the punishment illegal, and highlighted the university’s lack of neutrality in these meetings, violating students’ rights to due process. Furthermore, these forms of discipline were part of the grounds for the call for a boycott of the UC, signed by hundreds of academics across the country. To continue with these processes, as these resolutions and statements point out, raises serious concerns not only for values of shared governance and academic freedom, but also students’ constitutionally protected rights.

Already in hundreds of grievance meetings, students have been baffled by a process in which they were already presumed guilty, while the university was unable to provide evidence of their individual guilt. Not only graduate students but also undergraduates have faced student conduct charges relating to a labor action that appear on their academic records, delay the completion of their degrees and threaten their on-campus housing and student status. A recent letter from the Faculty Organizing Group notes that this discipline continues while courts are shut and criminal proceedings have been halted. The purpose of these disciplinary hearings, as they write, seems only to be “to intimidate and overwhelm students”. These actions are unconscionable. We ask that you do the right thing, and cancel all student conduct summonses, end all other sanctions, and erase discipline from the records of all involved. 

In perplexity,

Disciplined graduate students

To UCSC Administration,

We first register our dismay that your latest deadline to turn in grades (details attached) arrived to us with less than 24 hours to respond. Some fired graduate workers have not received the offer and many will simply miss the email as they adjust to the uncertainty of the pandemic. 

The Santa Cruz wildcat strikers have always been open and responsive to good faith communications, initiating multiple requests to negotiate, including a “grade trade” offer back in February—all refused by administration. Instead of negotiating with us collectively and in good faith, the administration’s approach aims to instill panic in individual grade withholders in a renewed attempt to undermine collective action. The COLA movement, however, will continue to make decisions collectively.

In that vein, we are unable to respond to this deadline without clarifications on the following points:

• Will fired graduate student workers who are now not able to find a spring appointment receive compensation?
• Will GSIs who have had their class removed receive compensation?
• Will those graduates who were made ineligible for spring appointments (rather than fired from an existing spring appointment) receive compensation if they are unable to find a new appointment?

With affirmative clarification on the above points, the COLA movement will agree to collectively submit grades under the following terms:

• The removal of all disciplinary measures from student records for past actions related to the wildcat strike, including the grading strike, the picket line, campus shutdowns, the ARC office takeover, and dining hall takeovers, and the guarantee not to further pursue student conduct procedures against students who were involved in these actions.
• A guarantee of full reinstatement for the spring quarter for all fired graduate student workers, including TAs and GSIs and those graduate students made ineligible for spring appointments, along with full compensation for those who cannot find an appointment at this late time.
• A guarantee of eligibility for future ASE appointments for all fired graduate student workers.
• That the administration remove clause E: “In the event XXXXX is terminated from employment pursuant to this Agreement, XXXXX waives her right to a Skelly hearing. XXXXX and the Union acknowledges and agree that the parties waive their right to file a grievance or complaint with the University of California, the courts or any governmental administrative agency concerning her dismissal for failure to adhere to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.”
• A guarantee that this offer be expanded to students who are withholding Winter quarter grades.
• An expansion of the $2,500 housing supplement to all graduate students including MA students, MFA students beyond the 2nd year of their program, PhD students beyond the 5th year of their program, and all fired graduate students.
• A written commitment to advocate for UCOP to immediately engage in good faith bargaining with UAW 2865 over a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for all ASEs in the UC system. We are not striking to be reinstated; we are striking for a COLA.

The context of the global COVID-19 pandemic has only intensified the urgent need to make fired workers whole. The University of California cannot remain content with a wishful vision of “online business as usual” while its imperiled workers struggle to adapt to drastic changes in their working and living conditions. Now more than ever, graduate student workers, including those of us who are immunocompromised or otherwise particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, need job security, a living wage, and freedom from unjust and arbitrary discipline. 

We are open to negotiation, as we have expressed and pushed for throughout this strike. We ask that you renege your bad faith offer and meet our good faith one. We expect clarifications and an answer to our terms by the end of the week, Friday 11:59pm.

Signed,

UC Santa Cruz Wildcat Strikers

ATTACHMENT TO BOTTOM OF EMAIL: Word Doc of “Last Chance Agreement” 

______________________

Kavitha’s email: 

Hi everyone, 

I wanted to send you an update on your Notices of Actions to Dismiss and the emails you received telling you that you would not be eligible for ASE employment in the future.  

As many of you have likely heard, management has agreed to offer jobs for the spring quarter and in quarters thereafter to all of you, should you decide to submit grades by 5pm today or if you have already submitted the rest of your fall quarter grades. Attached is a template for such an agreement, though it would be tailored to your specific case. 

If that timeline is too short and you need another day, please be in touch. Like nearly any agreement for reinstatement for these types of activities, the agreement for you would likely include, like the one attached, a limit on future wildcat grade withholding.  

I hope you’re all safe amidst the ever-changing conditions of COVID-19.  

Sincerely,

Kavitha

Text of the Last Chance Agreement

Last Chance Agreement Between

XXXX 

And

University of California, Santa Cruz

And

UAW 2865

March 29, 2020 

The University of California Santa Cruz (hereinafter referred to as the University), XXXX (hereinafter referred to as XXXX and the United Auto Workers 2865 (hereinafter referred to as Union) enter into this Last Chance Agreement (hereinafter referred to as Agreement). 

Acknowledgements

On March 26, 2020, XXXX received a letter notifying her that she would be dismissed from her spring teaching assistant appointment in XXXXX effective March 31, 2020 for failing to turn in fall quarter grades after a directive from interim Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer.

 On or about March 27, 2020, the University received information from XXXX regarding her submission of fall quarter grades. XXXXX submitted documentation, including two letters of support from her fall and winter quarter instructors of record, as well as a personal letter discussing that she remains committed to taking actions in the best interest of her students now and in the future.

On March 28, 2020, the University confirmed that XXXXXX submitted her fall and winter quarter grades.

In light of XXXXX subsequent grade submission and commitment to her students, the University agrees that it will not seek to dismiss XXXXX with the Union’s agreement to the following: 

Terms and Conditions

1. Upon signature of this Agreement, the Notice of Dismiss dated March 26, 2020 and all supporting documents including but not limited to the Notice of Intent to Dismiss and Skelly recommendation, will be withdrawn. None of the listed documents will be placed in XXXXX personnel file. Without a dismissal on file, XXXXX will retain her spring quarter 2020 teaching assistant position in XXXXX.

1. XXXXX is required to meet the standards of performance required of an academic student employee position, including but not limited to adherence to the  description of duties form, compliance with Regental policy 1111, and timely and accurate submission of grades for all quarters in which she holds an academic student employee appointment from the date of signature on this Agreement through the date XXXXX graduates from her degree program or separates from the University, whichever is earlier.  Her failure to meet these standards will subject her to automatic dismissal and loss of future eligibility for an academic student employee appointment with the University from the effective date of this Agreement.

1. Nothing in this Agreement precludes XXXXX from engaging in protected, concerted activity.

1. XXXXX acknowledges and agrees that her continued employment with the University is contingent upon her compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, and that her failure to comply with all terms and conditions of the Agreement subjects her to dismissal upon execution of this Agreement.

1. In the event XXXXX is terminated from employment pursuant to this Agreement, XXXXX waives her right to a Skelly hearing XXXXX and the Union acknowledges and agree that the parties waive their right to file a grievance or complaint with the University of California, the courts or any governmental administrative agency concerning her dismissal for failure to adhere to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

1. The parties further agree that this Agreement shall not serve as a precedent for the resolution of any other issue or grievance and that this Agreement shall not be precedent setting.

1. Nothing contained herein shall be deemed an admission by the University of any misfeasance or liability whatsoever.

1. It is further agreed that XXXXX and the Union will not grieve this Agreement.

1. If any provision, or portion of any provision(s), of this Agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision or portion thereof shall be deemed severed and the remaining terms of the Agreement shall remain in effect.

This Last Chance Agreement incorporates the entire understanding between the parties and recites the sole consideration for the promises exchanged herein. In reaching this agreement, neither party has relied on any presentation or promise except as expressly set forth herein. Each of the undersigned parties hereby acknowledges that a representative of their own choosing has represented them and that they understand and fully aware of the contents and legal effect of this Last Chance Agreement and agree to be bound by the terms contained herein.

///

///

Date: Date:

For the University: XXXXX

____________________________ ____________________________

Jennifer Schiffner,

Director, Employee & Labor Relations

For UAW 2865:

____________________________

Kavitha Iyengar, President

We want to begin by acknowledging the exhaustion and anxiety many of us are experiencing. For us at UCSC, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic comes amidst an already tumultuous year. Like so many faculty, staff, and undergraduate students, we are tired, we are stressed, and we desperately want to see a resolution to the ongoing strike. 

Over the last week, strikers have been asked, “Why, in the face of a global health pandemic, would you continue striking for a COLA?” Sometimes, this question is followed with concern for undergraduate students who, without a doubt, have endured an unusual and stressful quarter. More often, this question is posed alongside the assertion that there are much larger matters to attend to, now. While we agree that we are in the midst of a crisis, we strongly disagree that this crisis gives us reason to pause our labor action. In fact, we argue that the crisis itself gives new urgency to our strike demand and renders our victory all the more necessary. We are writing to explain why. 

First, for those of us living paycheck-to-paycheck, the ability to access emergency provisions in our moment of crisis is virtually impossible. Many of us have no savings. Most of us have no family or generational wealth to draw on. The financial insecurity that compelled us to demand a COLA is now compounded by crisis-related expenses (unexpected travel, additional childcare costs, medical supplies, aid to relatives and loved ones, to name just a few).  

Second, given the exorbitant cost of living in Santa Cruz, it is not uncommon for graduate student-workers to work additional jobs. These second and third jobs are necessary to supplement the inadequate wages we receive as TAs and GSIs. However, since the order to “shelter in place” began, graduate student-workers, like workers around the country, are reporting being formally laid off or told to stay home without pay (who knows for how long, though a federal report estimates at least 18 months). With people losing their second and third jobs, the demand for a COLA is the demand to survive. 

But beyond the ways in which the economic precarity of graduate workers is compounded by the crisis, it also needs to be pointed out that this precarity itself compounds the crisis.  The University can grant sick leave and move all instruction online, but so long as it continues to underpay its workforce, requiring grads to continue to seek out second and third jobs (now as “essential” Instacart shoppers, DoorDashers, and Amazon delivery drivers) in order to make rent in Santa Cruz, it is still contributing to the likelihood that its workers, out of desperation and unable to forego supplemental employment, will contribute to the spread of the virus.  Therefore, organizing against economic precarity is very directly about addressing the conditions that produce this pandemic.  

We know from the history of labor organizing that crises are most definitely not when a pause is called for in our work for a more just society.  To treat a national emergency as something that must supersede all other demands we place on our employers and our governments is to all but guarantee that the crisis will be resolved to the benefit of those in power and on the backs of the most vulnerable.  The greatest gains for labor of the last century came as the result of a decade and a half long national strike wave that took place in the midst of the successive crises and national mobilizations of the great depression and the Second World War.  The workers who led these strikes knew that if they bracketed their demands during these global emergencies, the world that emerged would be one that was worse for working people.  

The idea that a crisis is a time when everyone’s interests align in the face of a greater shared danger is a quaint fantasy.  This danger is never shared evenly.  In the present moment, workers around the world are taking strike action and demanding what they need from their employer to live. They are striking not in spite of the pandemic but because of it.  Their demands—our demands—for economic justice are demands to end the intolerable inequality that both exacerbates and is exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak.  

The University has the ability to negotiate with us and to resolve this matter immediately. Now, more than ever, we (and all low-wage workers) need a living wage! 

Solidarity forever,

Striking graduate students

Dear grads,

This week, communications have gone out from Public Affairs to instructors about final grades for Winter courses. These communications appear to suggest that, when grads go on strike, undergraduates have to choose between a) taking an incomplete and b) requesting a grade (in a number of ways and forms). 

However, this is not the case – instructors can still request to submit a partial roster. Below is a template to send to undergraduates. FOG is working on a more detailed response to go out to faculty by tomorrow. 

In solidarity,

—–

[Dear all,]

Communications have gone out [TODAY] to students about final grades in winter quarter courses. 

The communications may have made it appear that you are choosing between two things: 

a) taking an incomplete, or 

b) requesting a grade, either 1) as a P/NP, or 2) as a letter grade from your TA or 3) from [YOUR INSTRUCTOR’S NAME], who would then be [picking up struck labor/ forced to take on labor outside of [THEIR] contract/ grading you with partial information.] 

However, you do not need to do either of these things. Instructors can request to submit a partial roster, meaning that if you do not request a grade from your TA, the grade will simply be missing. This is the same situation as Fall Quarter, and it will not harm you (apart from in a few very specific scenarios – again, you can consult our flowchart below to see if you need a grade).

Please contact me if you have any concerns. 

All best,

[   ]

Dear fellow grads,

We are reaching out with additional information and guidance about withholding grades for Winter quarter. Though the procedures are basically the same as for Fall, we want to reiterate the power of withholding grades as leverage against the administration in our fight for better working conditions. 

In addition, we want to remind everyone of the powerful movements that have developed at other UC campuses in the few short months since fall quarter ended. These movements are advancing rapidly at all campuses, but especially at UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley, all of which are now engaged in wildcat strikes. It is crucial to remember that we are not alone in this fight. The wildcat grading and teaching strikes across the UC, along with the unfair labor practice (ULP) lawsuits filed by the union against the UC, are further building our power to bring the UC to the bargaining table. In this moment, it is essential that we maintain our position and withhold as many grades as possible for Winter quarter, along with our colleagues at UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, and UC Davis.

Please see the “How to Strike” document for detailed information about how to withhold grades. However, please note the following key pieces of information:

1. Failing grades: We recommend posting failing grades immediately, as these will impact a student’s progress and may have a more negative impact if they show up unexpectedly later.
2. Winter graduation: If a student is unsure about whether they need their official grades posted in order to graduate in Winter quarter, the most important question is whether they need an official transcript in the near future to prove their graduation (say, to an employer), or whether it can wait. If a student has applied to graduate in Winter quarter, the Registrar usually cannot clear them to graduate until all official grades are posted. However, it is important to remember that the Registrar can (and often does) backdate a student’s graduation to their transcript–if the student finished their degree requirements in winter 2020, that is what their transcript will reflect (even if, for example, that degree is not officially posted until sometime in spring quarter). 
3. Admin emails asking for individual grades: Last week, several instructors received emails from the Registrar’s office indicating that grades were needed for specific students, either due to Winter 2020 graduation or for undisclosed reasons. In any case in which you/your instructor receives emails from the Registrar, the Financial Aid office, or similar entities, a good first step is to reach out to the specific student(s) mentioned in the emails. They have likely received communications from these offices as well; they can decide if they want their official grade posted. 

Again, the most effective way to support the movement right now is to withhold winter grades. Use the attached how-to document, the grade request flowchart, and the template for emailing undergraduates to guide you through the process. The administration is going to extreme lengths to punish strikers and to calculate/input fall grades without negotiating with TAs–they want these grades very badly, which underscores the power of this tactic.

In solidarity,

Striking graduate students

For one month, UCSC wildcat strikers have maintained a full picket at the base of campus. Over this period, Metro buses have refused to cross our picket line, alongside thousands of grads, undergrads, faculty, lecturers, staff, technical workers, and UPS drivers. Our strike has spread across the UC system and has gathered major press coverage, donations, and support from around the world. It has invigorated collective imagination about the future of the university and graduate education in the UC system. This would have no doubt have been less effective had we not been out on the picket line every day for four weeks. 

The picket line has been a central site of organizing the strike thus far, and has served as a meeting place for so many of us who did not know each other before. It has served as a space for debate, deliberation, and mutual aid. As a result, it has also been subject to intimidation and attacks from police, reckless or belligerent drivers, and further threats by the administration—all of which have, of course, failed to stop this movement. 

After much discussion, however, it has become clear that our strategy must change. Much of our vitality as a movement lies in our adaptability. For the final week of the quarter, we are advancing our picket line up the hill and into the heart of campus. Our picket line will roll through different locations across the week, beginning at 9am in McHenry on Monday. We encourage the entire campus community to join us. 

Our work stoppage continues.

More information on the week’s events will follow. See you on the rolling picket.

Solidarity forever,

Striking Graduate Students

Dear President Napolitano, Chancellor Larive, EVC Kletzer, Dean Williams, and UC Regents:

In response to the mass firing and barring of roughly 80 UCSC graduate workers from spring quarter appointments, on Thursday, March 5th, striking grads and their allies seized both entrances to campus and held them for 10+ hours. We know you know this, because we know it had a huge impact on the daily operations of the university. 

Classes were cancelled, building projects were halted, the flow of goods onto campus was cut off, food was not prepared, bathrooms were not cleaned, trashcans were not emptied. We did not want to resort to this. We never wanted to resort to this. But when you fire international, POC, undocumented, pregnant, broke, indebted, hungry, rent-burdened, angry, and principled people, you should expect an uprising. 

And it is an uprising you are getting. Grads at Santa Barbara have gone on full strike. Grads at Davis and San Diego are on grading strike. Dozens of departments at Berkeley and Los Angeles are strike-ready, and more are following their lead. Four other campuses are organizing and starting to catch up. 

We know you never expected this. You thought you could keep this from spreading. You thought firing us would scare others away. You were wrong. What you’ve never seemed to understand is that we are committed not just because we want better material conditions but because we are true believers in education and equal access to it. It is this that makes us unstoppable.

If you haven’t yet understood this, I direct you to this video in which a number of us are interviewed. You should see the faces of those you fired, and listen to what they have to say. These are people whose risk and sacrifice are rescuing this university from its neoliberal demise. You owe them your respect, because they are doing the job that you repeatedly fail to do. 

Yours very truly,

Stephen David Engel

Why Classes Are Cancelled

Nearly 100 of our colleagues have been fired. 18 of our friends and supporters have been arrested, many brutalized by police. The same precarious workers that were driven to demand a COLA have been rendered even more precarious—facing further food and housing insecurity, potential loss of legal status, healthcare, and childcare subsidies. The student conduct process has been mobilized to suppress dissent and monitor political activity in relation to employment decisions. Administration has tried to drive wedges between everyone—undergrads and grads, workers and student workers, faculty and advisees, divisions and departments.

The administration’s response has been to minimize the significance of the crisis from the beginning, to bemoan the interruptions caused by the strike, and to deflect blame for these consequences onto the strikers. Their repeated calls for returning back to business as usual at all costs (modified slightly with new advisory councils, studies, “short and long term solutions”) is also their justification for refusing to acknowledge the strike directly. UCOP states unequivocally that the wildcat strike undermines the basis on which they manage the university’s labor. And they are set on stamping it out and reducing it to an aberration. The firing 10% of the TA workforce cannot pass for normal; neither should it be normalized. It is an outrageous and cruel overreach by a profit-hungry administration.

This is why business cannot carry on as usual, and why students, faculty, and workers across University of California campuses statewide are taking action today. The strike began because there was a crisis that demanded to be acknowledged, that had been swept under the rug for too long. Every administrative response since, from indifference to tear gas to termination letters, has only further illustrated the depth and breadth of the crisis perpetuated every day by this university system. Classes are cancelled today because things must change if anything is to carry on at all.

In solidarity with students, workers, faculty, and staff,

Striking Graduate Students

Dear all,

It is worth noting, firstly, that more than 54 graduate student workers were fired or barred from spring appointments on Friday, including at least ten international students. The number is certainly higher than 70 and may be around or above 80.

I wanted to state the obvious point that these firings are not yet final. They can be reversed at any moment. That is, they are now a site of struggle for our community. 

Many have written and will continue to write about the stakes of this moment: for the jobs, livelihoods, and careers of those fired; for the future of public graduate research and education; for the quality of public undergraduate education; for the future of labour movements and living-wage and affordability struggles; for the future of robust humanities, arts, and social science divisions; etc.

But I wanted to share my simple conviction that no community deserving of the name would permit 70-80 of its members to be fired for a peaceful struggle for the ability to pay rent. In the words of our STEM colleagues, this is a deplorable action.

The support outside of UCSC since the firings has been swift and enormous. Since the news broke, the strike fund has received nearly $100,000. People across the UC system are organizing weeks of action and graduate student workers move closer to striking every day, both for our reinstatement and for their own COLA. Before the firings, thousands of faculty across the country committed to effectively boycott UCSC in the event of mass firings.

 
But once again, and even after grueling months of struggle with administrative threats and police violence, the response that matters most is the one within the UCSC community. It is a moment that demands nothing less than the most meaningful forms of solidarity: more grading strikes, mutual aid, class cancellation, protest, picketing, collective job refusals, boycotts, work stoppages, etc. 

This starts on Monday at a press conference on the picket at 9:30am and does not stop until we are reinstated, safe, and making genuine progress towards the implementation of a COLA. 

I’ll see you on the picket.

Your fired international colleague and friend,

Jack.