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[From Admin] Confidential Personnel Matter

Letter sent to many individual TAs as an email attachment on the evening of Friday, Feb 14, 2020 (around 8pm) from the Office of CPEVC <officeof@ucsc.edu> following Janet Napolitano’s email to the UCSC community and Lori Kletzer’s email to faculty.

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It reads:

February 14, 2020

I am writing because you have not submitted grades for the Fall Quarter and those grades remain outstanding. You received a written warning in early February 2020 for failing to submit Fall Quarter grades as of that date.

The submission of grades is a required duty of your position. Your continued refusal to submit Fall Quarter grades even after receiving a written warning is causing continuing and ongoing harm to the students who earned them and to the operations of the University. You are directed to submit all outstanding grades from the Fall Quarter by no later than February 21, 2020. Your failure to follow this directive will lead to disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal from your current and/or Spring Quarter appointment.

I also want to emphasize that you are expected to perform your required job duties for the duration of your appointment. Participation in the wildcat strike not only violates the no strikes clause in the collective bargaining agreement between the UAW and the University but also reflects a failure to meet your employment responsibilities and will result in disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.

If you believe that you have been identified in error as a person who has not submitted Fall Quarter grades, please let me know as soon as possible. Otherwise, we look forward to your expected cooperation in submitting Fall Quarter grades by no later than February 21, 2020.

Sincerely,
Lori G. Kletzer
Interim Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor

cc: Jennifer Schiffner, Director of Employee & Labor Relations Quentin Williams, Acting Vice Provost & Dean of Graduate Studies

[From Admin] Graduate student strike update

Email from EVC Lori Kletzer sent to UCSC faculty on Friday, Feb 14, 2020, at 6:20 pm, immediately following Napolitano’s email. Soon after, Kletzer’s office began sending letters to TAs warning them to release grades or face disciplinary action and/or dismissal from current and/or Spring appointments.

TL;DR

“All students who have continued to withhold fall grades will be informed that they have until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, February 21 to submit all missing grades, to end the strike and to fulfill their contractual obligations… Those who do not submit full grade information by February 21 will not receive spring quarter appointments or will be dismissed from their spring quarter appointments.”

Lori Kletzer

Full Email

February 14, 2020

To: UC Santa Cruz Faculty
From: Interim Campus Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer
Subject: Graduate student strike update

Over my nearly 28 years of affiliation with UC Santa Cruz, I have never lost the inspiration I feel over the promise and potential of this campus, the accomplishments of our faculty, and our collective dedication to the teaching, research, and public service mission. The grading, and now teaching, strike disrupts our educational mission and imposes costs on students, particularly our undergraduate students. At this difficult moment for our campus, we may disagree about tactics and approach; however, we all agree that the motivating issues are real and felt by many.

The housing crisis is complex, systemic, and at the same time, deeply personal for many. There are no easy answers and in so many ways it is a challenge that is larger than our community. We have struggled with this challenge almost as long as I have been on this campus, at times with more success than others. 

Where we differ, however, is in the approach to solve this problem. Our graduate student instructors and teaching assistants have chosen to ignore their own union and to strike, demanding a significant increase to their existing, union-negotiated compensation package, an increase that they have characterized as a cost of living adjustment.  

Recognizing the short-term challenge to housing, Chancellor Larive announced two new programs to provide doctoral and MFA students with greater financial security and predictability, at a cost of  approximately $7 million per year.

  • Beginning in fall 2020, we will offer new and continuing doctoral students support packages for five years (two years for MFA students). These packages will have a minimum level of support equivalent to that of a 50 percent teaching assistantship.
  • Second, until more graduate student housing becomes available, a need-based, annual housing supplement of $2,500 for doctoral and MFA students offered through a partnership between the Financial Aid Office and the Graduate Division.

Despite this overture that provides significant improvement in financial support, the grading strike did not come to an end, but escalated to a full teaching strike. And while I understand the drivers, I do not support the approach. Moreover, and more importantly, the approach taken by our striking graduate student employees is having a significant negative impact on the emotional well-being and academic success of our undergraduate students, our dedicated staff who have gone above and beyond to mitigate the consequences, and the very mission of our campus.

I have met with graduate student activists on several occasions to explore ways in which we could have a substantive conversation and discuss how we can support them beyond the programs that we have already announced and which, I believe, substantially improves their financial security and ability to plan.

Despite these efforts, our students continue to strike. They continue to refuse to provide grade information for the fall quarter. And they continue to interrupt the very programs that change the lives of our undergraduate students. Given this unwillingness to de-escalate and come together, I share with you here a difficult next step that our campus must take.  

Today, all students who have continued to withhold fall grades will be informed that they have until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, February 21 to submit all missing grades, to end the strike and to fulfill their contractual obligations. We are giving these students one final opportunity to fulfill their teaching responsibilities and show that they can fulfill future responsibilities. Those who do not submit full grade information by February 21 will not receive spring quarter appointments or will be dismissed from their spring quarter appointments. 

As faculty members, I urge you to speak with your TAs and advisees and encourage them to stop their unsanctioned strike and to submit the missing grades.  I understand the close bond you have with your students, the promise they represent as scholars and practitioners, the vital role they play in supporting our educational mission, and I hope you will be able to discuss with them that returning to work is in their own personal and professional interests and is in the best interests of all our students. I acknowledge and thank you for supporting our students and engaging in what are very difficult conversations.

This is not a step we have taken lightly. Contingency plans will be developed to mitigate the issues this will create once we understand who has returned to work and who has not. I understand that this is going to result in challenges but believe at this point, it is our best option.  

I trust soon we can get back to our shared academic purpose—teaching and research. I sincerely hope that most, if not all, of our TAs decide to re-join us in this vital endeavor. 

[From Admin] An Open Letter to Faculty, Staff and Students at UC Santa Cruz

Email from UC President Janet Napolitano, sent Friday, Feb 14, 2020 at 6:01 pm via UCSC Public Affairs. Soon after, Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer emailed faculty and then began sending letters to TAs warning them to release grades or face disciplinary action and/or dismissal from current and/or Spring appointments.

TL;DR

“Participation in the wildcat strike will have consequences, up to and including the termination of existing employment at the University.”

Janet Napolitano

Full Email

February 14, 2020


To: UC Santa Cruz Community
From: Janet Napolitano, President, University of California
Subject: An Open Letter to Faculty, Staff and Students at UC Santa Cruz

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students:

The University of California respects its labor unions and its unionized workers. They provide valuable services throughout the University, from gardening and food service on our campuses to patient care in our hospitals to lecturers in our classrooms. The obligations between the University and its unions are negotiated and memorialized systemwide in collective bargaining agreements, which must be voted on and ratified by the union membership. With respect to the collective bargaining agreement between the University and Academic Student Employee-Teaching Assistants (TAs) and their union, the United Auto Workers (UAW), the TAs received the following benefits:

  • A waiver of tuition, plus a $300 campus fee remission
  • 3% annual wage increases (in line with other University employees)
  • A child care subsidy of $3,300 per year (unique to TAs)
  • A one-time signing bonus
  • A complete remission of any health care premiums

In exchange for these guaranteed benefits, the University received a contractual promise that the TAs would not strike while the collective bargaining agreement was in effect through June 30, 2022.

Consequently, the wildcat strike by UC Santa Cruz TAs, where a number of TAs have withheld or deleted fall grades and are refusing to teach classes, is unauthorized and in direct violation of the existing collective bargaining agreement. The striking TAs have asked whether the University would either re-open the agreement or negotiate a separate side letter with them to provide a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) over and above the wage increase already in the agreement to account for the high cost of housing in Santa Cruz.

The University will not re-open the agreement or negotiate a separate side-letter. To accede to the demands of a group of employees engaged in an unauthorized wildcat strike would undercut the very foundation of an agreement negotiated in good faith by the UAW and ratified by thousands of members across the system.

We are sympathetic to the high cost of housing in Santa Cruz and the pressure this puts on TAs, but a wildcat strike is not the way to get relief. Chancellor Larive has already proposed two measures to help graduate students: a $2,500 need-based housing fellowship; and for doctoral students a 5-year, funding program at the minimum support level of a 50 percent teaching assistantship. We can work together to persuade our legislators in Sacramento to support the University’s request for more graduate student support. We could also work together to develop other legislative proposals to speed the construction of student housing.  

However, holding undergraduate grades hostage and refusing to carry out contracted teaching responsibilities is the wrong way to go. Therefore, participation in the wildcat strike will have consequences, up to and including the termination of existing employment at the University.

It should not come to this. We urge the striking TAs to turn in their grades and return to the classroom. The TAs must honor their side of the bargain, just as the University must honor its commitments. The wildcat strike must come to an end.

Yours very truly,

Janet Napolitano
President

Strike Updates Day 4

From Joe Klein
February 13, 2020

Dear Colleagues, 

I wanted to write again with some updates from today’s strike. 
Hundreds of graduate students, undergraduates, faculty, staff, lecturers, and others rallied for a fourth day at both entrances to campus. Energy was incredibly high all morning, and for the fourth consecutive day, metro bus service to campus was disrupted due to the picket. Faculty again marched to join the picket in support of the strike and against Chancellor Cynthia Larive and EVC Lori Kletzer’s use of police force against undergraduates, graduates, and supporters. 

Around 2:30 pm, a huge group of STEM graduate students wearing their lab coats marched down to the base of campus to join the main picket. In a joyful show of power, the strikers then peacefully closed down the main entrance to campus and marched in a massive picket line around the intersection of Bay and High, led by STEM graduate students, effectively closing down the intersection. The main entrance to campus remained closed for the rest of the day. Strikers continued to picket, hold teach-ins and workshops, dance, and organize. 

As of today, UCSC has spent approximately $1.2 million on the police presence at the picket line. Meanwhile, all of the students who were arrested yesterday are facing 14 day suspensions and being blocked from returning to campus, even if they pay rent to live there. 

In a direct rebuke to administrations claims of undergraduates being harmed by the strike, today UCSC’s undergraduate student government unanimously voted to support the strike for a COLA for all graduate students. The exact phrase used by an undergraduate student government representative in today’s general assembly was that “Lori Kletzer is a lying snake.” Undergraduates will be convening their own general assembly tomorrow at 12pm at the Quarry Amphitheater to continue to organize. 

Indeed, there is a significant amount of false information being put out by UCSC administration, including that they are unable to negotiate with our union to meet our demand; this is plainly false–such negotiations happen all the time, including to resolve the 2018 West Virginia teacher’s strike. Our statewide union is attempting to set up a meeting with UCSC administration, but as of the time of writing, administration has not responded, nor offered anything substantial, so the strike continues!

Today’s action items: 

As always, thank you so so much for your support, and extra special thanks to our undergraduates and to the faculty who came out to support strikers today–we are so grateful. 

See you tomorrow!

Response to Public Affairs About Arrests

If you’re talking about “having a critical role in ensuring safety and security to the people on campus”, the only people I know of who were physically hurt in the past week have been undergraduate and graduate students, by police. They have been beaten and bloodied. When we are fighting for housing security, fighting for wages that let us live and thrive here, and taking care of one another, and you are beating the shit out of us and our friends, I think we have the better claim to say that “the safety of everyone in our community is our highest priority”, and not yours.


We provide water and sunscreen to each other, childcare, and medical and legal support (including funds). The cops arrested someone bringing water through, and have consistently blocked supplies.

We also want to “study, … teach, and conduct research”. Grads have made clear that our lack of a COLA presents a significant obstacle to this.

Who do you protect? Who do you serve?

[from Admin] Yesterday’s protest and arrests

To: UC Santa Cruz Community

From: Public Affairs

Subject: Yesterday’s protest and arrests

Yesterday, on the third consecutive day of unsanctioned strike activity, officers arrested 17 participants who ignored dispersal orders that were repeated over approximately 20 minutes—requests to move out of the city intersection of Bay and High streets and onto the university field to continue their demonstration. Officers repeatedly tried to de-escalate the situation and made clear that blocking this major roadway had to stop or it would lead to arrest. Demonstrators locked arms, sat in the roadway, and refused to move back onto the university field.

During Monday’s unsanctioned strike activity, there were several dangerous incidents between vehicles and picketers when this major intersection was blocked. The safety of everyone in our community is our highest priority. Failing to comply with an order to disperse and obstructing a roadway is extremely dangerous, and it is also against the law. The participants in the unsanctioned strike were arrested for unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, and unlawful obstruction of the free movement of any person on any street, sidewalk, or other public place. While we understand the frustration about housing costs in Santa Cruz, we also have responsibilities to the vast majority of our faculty, staff and students who simply want to do what they came to UC Santa Cruz to do–to study, to teach, and conduct research. 

UCSC’s police officers have a critical role in ensuring safety and security to all on campus.  They protect everyone’s ability to exercise the constitutionally protected rights of free expression, speech, and assembly. These rights do not extend, however, to disrupting regular and essential operations of the university by occupying offices, blocking roads, or infringing on the rights of others.  

It is essential that emergency responders, the Santa Cruz community, and the campus community can freely travel through the city, and on and off the residential campus. Moreover, in addition to the 9,300 students who live on campus, UC Santa Cruz is home to families with young children and elderly residents.  We hope today’s protests remain peaceful and lawful.  

Feb 13 Strike Recap: Police Escalation Continues

Dear Chancellor Larive, EVC Kletzer, Faculty, and Grads,

Today: We—undergraduates, graduates, and faculty—stood together in solidarity and stared down the latest police intimidation and brutality, acting under administrative orders to keep “business as usual.” Business is not usual when graduates and undergraduates are this heavily rent burdened and indebted. Business is not usual when hundreds of people close the base of campus demanding change. Business is not usual when the administration spends over $300,000 in one day to bring in out-of-county police and put them up in the Hyatt. Business is not usual when faculty are standing between students and police in riot gear. And business does not return to usual when those cops arrest 17 people, injuring many so badly that they ended up in urgent care at the hospital- hair ripped out, bleeding, concussed, and with broken fingers. See the linked video and photos below.

An administration bemoaning harm to undergraduates missing fall grades cannot burn money on cops that arrest and assault peacefully protesting students. The administration appalls us. It is a disgrace to our community. 

Refusing to be intimidated and struggling for just demands, undergraduates, graduates, and faculty stood firm until police backed off and agreed to release every person they had arrested. We held the Bay and High Street intersection for over four hours, only leaving when we decided it was time to dance together on the lawn. 

Tomorrow: We held a general assembly to close the day, and resolved to come back tomorrow morning. We will be set up from 7:30am and cannot wait to see your beautiful faces. 

Join us tomorrow on the picket! Become part of this movement. We grow and learn more every single day we are out here.Every day longer is a day stronger.

We particularly encourage every graduate student who reads this to come to the picket tomorrow. Students who cannot be arrested or handle confrontation with the police will be protected.

Photo credit: Dan Coyro
Photo credit: Dan Coyro
Photo credit: Haneen Zain
Photo credit: Morteza Behrooz
Photo credit: Morteza Behrooz
Photo credit: Josh Dylan Bernstein

Sincerely,
Students and Workers

Help prevent admin from using snitch form to punish TAs!

On February 7, Public Affairs sent a mass email asking undergraduates to report classes and sections that have been cancelled or modified as a result of the teaching strike. The form even asks for the names of TAs, suggesting that admin may want to use this information to punish TAs who may have decided to participate in the strike by withholding their labor.

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student, you can help prevent admin from using submissions to this form to punish TAs who are fighting to be paid enough to survive in Santa Cruz. Follow the instructions below, and spread the message to fellow grads, fellow undergrads, or undergrads that you teach using the email template below the instructions!

Instructions

  1. Go to the Google Form that Public Affairs sent out in their February 7 email.
  2. Using this random UCSC class finder, pick a UCSC class and enter the class name into the Google Form. Use the class’s meeting time as the answer to the question “What was the scheduled meeting time?”
  3. Make a random selection for the questions titled “Did this disruption concern…” and “What type of disruption occurred?”.
  4. For “What day did the disruption occur?” use one of the dates of the full teaching strike (2/10 or later).
  5. As the TA/Instructor name, use a name from this random first and last name generator. Don’t use names like Cynthia Larive that easily identify a submission as fake.
  6. Make between one and four separate form submissions. Ideally, these submissions should come from lots of different people.
  7. SPREAD THE WORD!

Hello, <NAME/GROUP>!

As you may have seen in the email from Public Affairs on February 7, admin is trying to encourage students to snitch on TAs who are participating in the strike. I feel that it is unjust that the administration wants to punish grad students when they are simply fighting for a living wage. Here’s an easy way that you can help make the information they receive unusable:

  1. Go to the Google Form that Public Affairs sent out in their email
  2. Put in a random UCSC class name using this random UCSC class generator. Where the form says “What was the scheduled meeting time?”, enter the time from the class generator.
  3. Make a random selection for the “Did this disruption concern…” question and for the “What type of disruption occurred?” question.
  4. As the TA/Instructor name, pick a name from this random first and last name generator.
  5. Make between one and four separate form submissions, one for each random class. Ideally, these submissions should come from LOTS of different people.

Please forward this message to any/all other undergrads you know!

Strike Updates Day 3

From Joe Klein
February 12, 2020

Dear Colleagues, 

I wanted to write again with some updates from today’s strike. 

Hundreds of graduate students, undergraduates, faculty, staff, lecturers, and others rallied for a third day at both entrances to campus. Energy was incredibly high all morning, and for the third day in a row, metro bus service to campus was disrupted due to the picket. In late morning, picketers from the west entrance to campus marched down Empire Grade to the main entrance of campus, where they joined the main picket and together the strikers peacefully closed down the main entrance to campus for the third day in a row. After being joined once again by faculty marching down from the Women’s center, hundreds of strikers again took over the entire intersection of Bay and High, and held the intersection for over 4 hours, graduate and undergraduate linked arm-in-arm in the face of the police. To my knowledge, this was the most significant show of student and worker power in UCSC’s recent memory. 

For a third day, the UCSC administration’s police response has been unconscionable. At the behest of UCSC administrators, squads of police in riot gear again threatened, beat, bloodied, and arrested strikers. Police arrested 16 strikers who were sitting peacefully in circles. The full number of injured students is pending, but at least one student had her finger broken by police, another was bleeding profusely from his head after being hit by batons, and others received bruised ribs and bones. Many faculty witnessed these attacks and put themselves between the police and the strikers. Strikers refused to leave the streets until all of the arrested people were released. However one striker remains in police custody after choosing not to identify themselves; COLA organizers are working on supporting and ensuring this person’s release.

Today in a meeting with GSA representatives, EVC Lori Kletzer said that UCSC is spending $300,000 per day for these police; this amounts to a running total of $900,000 dollars for three days of police presence, and presumably $1.5 million come Friday. I wonder what else we could do with that kind of money?

An update on strike progress: Despite weeks and months of claiming tied hands, administrators continue to come to the table thanks to intense pressure from strikers. Yesterday, Santa Cruz city council unanimously voted to issue a letter of support for a COLA. And significantly, today, UCSC Director of Employment and Labor Relations Jennifer Schiffner sent a letter to our statewide union asking for a meeting this week. Remember that just a few weeks ago they claimed this was impossible; direct action does indeed get the goods. However as of yet, administration has failed to meet the demand for a COLA, so the strike continues!

Today’s action items: 

As always, thank you so so much for your support, and extra special thanks to our undergraduates and to the faculty who came out to support strikers today–we are so grateful. 

See you tomorrow!

Tuesday (and Tomorrow)

Graduate wildcats went back out on strike again today. We give our eternal and overwhelming thanks to the undergrads who showed up, stood by our sides, were threatened by an army of cops from all across the Bay Area – surely costing the university tens, hundreds, of thousands of unnecessary dollars. Police apparently reported that they were going to do “whatever they needed to do.” What, exactly, do they need to do? What are they afraid of? 

Faculty, again, marched down from campus and met for a Faculty Assembly at 4. We are so grateful for their continued work with and alongside us. Tomorrow, they will meet at the Women’s Center at 11 and march at 11:30 am down to the base of campus. We look forward to seeing them there.

Lori Kletzer and Quentin Williams, meanwhile, granted a meeting with three graduate students and two faculty members (remember when they said they couldn’t meet with us?). In today’s meeting, grads reiterated that all decisions would be made collectively and told admin to offer them something to take back to our general assembly. What did admin offer us? 1) no money offer, and 2) a “substantive meeting”, where we might discuss financial resources, should we call off the strike. At our 4:30 pm General Assembly, grads, of course, did not see this as sufficient to call off the strike. So, we go back out at 7:30 am again tomorrow. This decision will be reported to them tomorrow when we meet with them again.

We will have an Organizing Committee meeting at 8:00 am close to the sign. 4:30 pm is our General Assembly. Look out for other events/ updates. All are welcome.

Solidarity.

Striking graduate students