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Resources for faculty

Faculty can assist with our strike in a variety of ways:

Striking to win as a student researcher

Academic workers at UC are preparing for a strike. Our union, UAW 4811, has filed an unfair labor practice charge over the UC administration’s brutal police response to the encampment and protests at UCLA. They have also authorized a statewide strike authorization vote (SAV) to commence May 13th – May 15th. If this SAV passes, UAW 4811 members will go on a sanctioned strike. With this strike, grad workers, as members of one of the largest UAW locals in the country, have the real potential to force the UC to concede to our demands in support of the uprisings and in solidarity with Palestine. UAW 4811 has adopted this set of strike demands focusing on divestment, free speech protection, transitional funding for researchers, and amnesty for student protestors (hugely inspired by organizing here at UCSC), and have issued this strike resolution.

Winning these demands from the UC will take sustained and concerted organizing across all departments at every campus. At UCSC, graduate student researchers comprise about 40% of the grad population, and our participation in this strike action will be a crucial part in forcing concessions from the UC. However, unlike TAs, whose work for the UC is largely synchronized, standardized and clearly different from their dissertation research, the work that researchers are paid to do is highly varied, largely asynchronous, and often completely entwined with the research we do to complete our degrees.

This presents several challenges that are unique to student researchers. . Namely, (1) how do we strike together and maintain solidarity across our varied work environments and positions, and (2) how do we put maximum pressure on the UC while minimally damaging our dissertation research for the duration of the strike (likely weeks or more)? With these questions in mind, and building on lessons learned from our contract strike in 2022, SRs from several STEM departments developed the following steps to organize a successful student researcher strike:

Step 1:  Power map your department

During a strike, our collective power comes from a coordinated refusal of labor, and to assess our power going into (and during) a strike, it’s crucial to map your workplace. It allows us to understand strike numbers and worker power within our department, while identifying special points of leverage. Who are the workers in my department? Who do they work with? What are the products of their labor (who is TAing, who is doing research), and what are the upcoming disruption points (grade deadlines, midterms, grant deadlines, conferences)? Who is ready to strike their labor?

This model of assessment is called power mapping. This is crucial to understand the spread of circumstances that researchers are in within different labs, and what labor withholding is happening for each worker. A power map can be shared internally and updated as a strike goes on to clearly track a department’s strike power at any given moment.

Here is a step-by-step guide to power mapping your department, and here is a template for the power map spreadsheet itself.  This template was created with SR-heavy departments in mind, but feel free to tailor it to the specifics of your department.

If you’re going at this alone, don’t! It’s useful to have a core of people within your department who are committed to organizing their coworkers towards this strike. Talk to your coworkers, figure out who is committed to meeting regularly and doing this organizing work over the medium term, and establish a shared communication channel – this will be your department’s organizing committee.

Step 2: Collectively make a department strike plan

Call a meeting with workers in your department to develop a collective strike plan. This means your entire lab or department has a cohesive understanding of what labor everyone is agreeing to withhold to maximize pressure on the university while avoiding long-term damage to your dissertation work (for example, a fly genetics lab could make a plan to ensure that their flies are fed every day, but would cease collecting data, refuse to attend meetings, and refuse to share results). Discussion and reaching consensus about this early helps keep your department coherent and disciplined as time passes and pressure builds on both the UC and us. It also  helps prevent confusion about struck work, resentment between workers, and the gradual attrition of individual SRs. Members of different labs and departments know their working conditions best, and so these strike plans may look different lab to lab, or department to department. We have learned that when we make these decisions together with the other workers we know, our strike will be more powerful, more sustained, and safer.

You may choose to fill out this worksheet as a department to collectively develop and discuss a lab-by-lab strike plan.

Cohere around a definition of labor withholding

Make a strong & specific plan for labor withholding in your lab or department. This will vary based on what you’ve learned from power mapping (key points of power for your department, and your fellow workers’ attitude towards labor withholding) and is best done in conversation with your fellow workers. The objective is to withhold the maximum amount of labor that you can while avoiding catastrophic impacts to department members’ degree progress. This flowchart can be helpful for SRs to figure out the maximum amount of research labor you can strike.

When dealing with the nuances of a researcher strike, it’s easy to rationalize not withholding more and more types of labor. Here is a recommended minimum baseline for research labor withholding, based on experience from previous UCSC strikes:

  • Refuse to share existing data/results with your PI or collaborators
  • Refuse to take new data
  • Don’t be physically present on campus, at your standard department seminar, or at the lab (unless there is an immediate need to keep creatures alive or instruments from self-destructing; even then, can one person at a time take care of everyone’s urgent lab upkeep tasks to minimize presence on campus?)
  • Stop doing unpaid/organizational labor for your department

The protective is the collective

Our collective, united power is the defining element of a strike. While organizing, you will very likely encounter folks who have fears about participating because they feel like they are individually at risk. The most important way to alleviate these fears is to build solidarity. There is strength, and protection, in numbers – the university cannot possibly fire every union member, or even a fraction of us, without catastrophic impact to their own goals. Think about how  to evenly spread the pressure around so certain workers (e.g. grade-withholding TAs) are not isolated and vulnerable. Frequent communication and contact between members of your department is important to combat the sense of isolation that the bosses want for us. (Keep in mind that some folks will simply not be willing to participate – if they’re sympathetic, see if they can take on organizing roles, even if they’re not willing to withhold labor!)

A concrete way to help fellow workers in your department feel safe is to approach faculty and get them to commit to not retaliating (example letter template). While retaliation against striking workers is illegal, the unfortunate truth is that this has not always stopped PIs and university administrators from doing it. Having commitments not to illegally come after strikers from faculty in advance can help assuage the fears of workers who may be on the fence about participating.

Here are some tips for creating collective protection within your department:

  • Stay in frequent communication with all your coworkers – not just your friend group. Consider setting up a strike-specific communication channel and try to get all your coworkers into it
  • Don’t be afraid to loop in a union representative to walk through tough conversations within your department, or answer questions
  • We all have different combinations of privilege and precarity. Map out where these strong & weak points are, and figure out how more protected individuals can collectively shield the more vulnerable ones
  • We are comrades, not enemies. Even if someone is not willing to strike now, they are still part of the collective and worth protecting – we’re pitting ourselves against the boss, not against each other

Counterprogramming

To create a more visible (and satisfying) disruption than simply being absent from your lab, consider trading your hours spent researching for hours spent building agitational and visible counter-programming in your departments (e.g., instead of going to your weekly department seminar, host a seminar at the same time describing a department-specific take on the issues and demands at hand). Most of our department colloquiums, seminars, social and research coffees are organized by graduate students and postdocs – if even that time spent organizing meetings went into building this programming it would make a hugely felt difference at the department level. Here is a starting point for imagining what this counterprogramming would look like in your department.

Reassess often

The dynamics of the strike will change as time goes by – check in every one to two weeks with your department or lab to assess your current strike power, look for (and troubleshoot) points of strain on your fellow workers, and evaluate your department strike plan for the next two-week phase. As pressure points (like grade deadlines, conferences, important meetings, and grant deadlines) arrive, you have the opportunity to shift your strike strategy to capitalize on these.

See also:

Striking to Win as Tutors and Readers

What’s happening?

If you are currently a tutor or reader, be aware that our union, UAW 4811, is gearing up for a strike over demands in support of a free Palestine that could begin as early as May 15. You can and should participate in this strike. 

The strike strategy

The strike will be a protected ULP strike. Our union has filed Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges against the UC after the assaults and arrests of students and workers at UCLA and UC San Diego. These charges give us legal cover to go on a protected strike and withhold our labor from the UC to win divestment from the university’s military investments, amnesty for encampment participants across the state, and the right to free speech and political expression on campus. 

The stand up strike

Our union’s leadership has voted on a stand up strike strategy, where the union will call on workers from a specific campus (or campuses) to “stand up” and walk off the job. This strategy keeps the UC guessing, and builds a strike that will grow in power over time.

Strike leverage

The majority of teaching hours across the UC, the vast majority of 1-on-1 student interactions, and almost all grading labor is conducted by academic workers in our union: tutors, readers, and graduate student TAs/instructors. Our collective labor is a crucial point of leverage in the UC’s business as usual. When we squeeze the UC with this leverage, we can win demands that may have once seemed impossible. The UC works because we do.

Authorizing the strike

From May 13-15, all members of UAW 4811 will be voting on the potential strike through a Strike Authorization Vote (SAV). The SAV is a secret ballot that will be sent to all union members via email. All members, including tutors and readers, are eligible to vote in the SAV. It is extremely important to vote YES in the SAV. This sends a clear message to our union leadership that workers across the state are ready to strike. If the SAV achieves a two-thirds majority YES result, the strike will be authorized and all workers should be ready to stand up.

Striking as a tutor or reader

During a protected ULP strike, you are expected to walk off the job and cease all work-related tasks, including: grading, scheduling, individual or group tutoring sessions, tutoring prep, timesheet maintenance, “logistics time,” and meetings with your supervisor. 

UAW strike benefits

All striking workers, including tutors and readers, are eligible to receive strike pay from the strike fund of the UAW International at a standard rate of $500 per week for all workers. You will notice that this is more than what the average tutor or reader will make in a week. More details on how to sign up for strike pay will be coming soon. 

You cannot be punished for striking

Participation in a ULP strike is legally considered protected union activity under both the U.S. Constitution and California’s Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA). It is against the law for the UC (or your supervisor) to retaliate individually or collectively against ULP strikers. If you are on strike and feel like you are receiving retaliation, contact your union representative immediately. Our union and your fellow academic workers on campus will fight hard against every potential incident of unlawful retaliation. 

The strike and the encampments

Following the Columbia University example, the student encampment movement is growing across the country. A strike is aligned with the encampments in the following ways:

  • Our strike will demand full amnesty from student discipline and legal charges for all encampment participants across the state
  • While the encampment relies on the continuing presence of courageous students in public campus areas, the strike relies on the continuing absence of the labor of workers to apply leverage on the UC’s educational system. These two different kinds of pressure can mesh together to produce a true crisis for the university on multiple fronts

But a strike is also strategically different from an encampment in the following ways:

  • Many successful encampments have mobilized between 1-5% of the student population. Any union that tried to strike with 1-5% of its workers would be immediately crushed. Strikes therefore need mass buy-in, not just the participation of the most radical workers
  • Several encampments in the UC have already begun negotiating with administrators, but these negotiations are only happening at the campus level. A strike would offer the leverage to force the UC to sit down, negotiate, and concede demands at a statewide level on matters that are beyond the authority of campus administrators, like the UC’s investment portfolio.

Every worker on strike counts. Let’s get ready to stand up for a free Palestine.

See also:

Strike FAQ for tutors and readers

Striking to win as an academic student employee

A Guide for TAs, Course Assistants, GSIs, Readers, and Tutors

A strike is a coordinated stoppage of work aimed at pressuring an employer to meet worker demands. Strikes work because employers depend on the labor of their workers (us) to operate. TAs, GSIs, Readers, and Tutors teach the majority of the classes across the UC system and make up the vast majority of one-on-one interaction with students. We have the leverage to get our demands met: if we withhold grades and refuse to teach or do paid research we make it impossible for the UC to function normally. 

What will the strike look like for ASEs?

First and foremost: withholding our labor. Stopping our work can take several forms. TAs, GSIs, Readers, and Tutors should not conduct classes, discussion sections, or office hours (on campus, online, or off campus), assign homework, grade assignments, or submit grades. Do not enter any new grades into Canvas or send students grades electronically. 

Can I keep in contact with my students during the strike?

It is not necessary to cease all contact with our students: it is important that they understand what we are doing and why. Because our working conditions are their learning conditions, our students should be informed about what we’re doing in the broader struggle for a free Palestine. During the strike, we can educate them through teach-ins conducted outside of university channels and by inviting them to our picket line. We will not discuss or provide them course materials, assignments, grades, lessons, or perform any duties related to our paid work.

It’s hard to feel like you’re leaving your students behind for a while, but remember, our working conditions directly affect the quality of education we are able to give our students. Many of our students are currently participating in the Palestine solidarity encampment on our campus and other local and campus Palestine solidarity activism. Striking our labor is a way we can leverage our power as workers to support their demands and participate together in the movement for Palestinian liberation.

See Also:

Striking to Win as a Student Researcher

Strike explainer for tutors and readers

Strike FAQ for tutors and readers

FAQ about ULP Strikes for International Workers