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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

Strike Updates Day 1

Adapted from an email by Joe Klein to Anthropology colleagues

Some news and updates from the first day of the strike:

Today, several hundred of graduate students, undergraduate students, faculty, lecturers, staff, and others rallied at both entrances to UCSC’s main campus, and joint actions were happening at 5 other UC campuses. The UCSC picket line was successful in disrupting all metro bus service to campus throughout the morning. Then, in a brilliant burst of energy, a huge group of faculty wearing regalia and carrying signs and banners marched through the street to the picket line down from the Women’s Center. This amazing burst of energy gave strikers the numbers and courage to join their faculty in the streets, and to shut down the main entrance to campus. Strikers took and held the entrance to campus, and eventually took over the entire intersection of Bay and High.

However, after most faculty had left, the response by UCSC police became aggressive and violent. Throughout the morning, there were dozens of UC police officers present at both entrances, brought in (with UCSC money) from across the Bay Area, attempting to intimidate and provoke strikers.

By the afternoon, the police had barricaded surrounding streets to prevent cars from driving near the picket. A young woman drove past the barricade to deliver water to the strikers, and upon arrival at the picket, was arrested by the approximately 30 UC police and CHP officers stationed at the base of campus. Strikers linked arms in nonviolent protest of this absurd arrest, and the police charged through the crowd in formation, batons out. Several UCSC students were beaten with batons; at least one student ended up at the Health Center after being hit on the head. In their words, “after getting beaten by three officers I went to the health center and I have a concussion and strained neck/back/shoulder.”

After this incident, police retreated and students continued to hold the intersection, initiating meetings, rallies, and dancing. We ended the day at about 5pm with a big general assembly.

So far there is only silence from the administration. So tomorrow the strike continues!

Some ideas of things to do:

  • Come to the picket line in the morning, with as many friends and colleagues as possible, as early as you can. It begins at 7:30. In particular, visible faculty presence seems to deter police aggression.
  • Write our administration and tell them how you feel about students being beaten by bussed-in police.
  • Cancel your classes and sections due to the ongoing strike if you feel able.
  • Inform your undergraduate students that attendance to class is flexible due to the strike.
  • For faculty, change your email signatures to indicate that you teach and advise severely rent burdened students.

Thank you all for your support, and special thanks to our faculty who showed up to join us on the picket today. We are so grateful! See you tomorrow!

Feminist Studies Grads Call for Full Work Stoppage

We are writing as Feminist Studies Graduate students in support of the full strike for a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) beginning Monday, February 10, 2020.

As graduate workers in this department, attuned to the structural conditions of the neoliberal labor market which inform the workings of the university, we feel assured in calling for a full work stoppage and are asking faculty to support by canceling classes, not crossing and the picket line and joining strikers at the base of campus instead. We make this ask, unequivocally, for this coming Monday and Tuesday and will maintain lines of communication regarding further action later in the week. A work stoppage is made all the more urgent in light of escalating threats from the administration regarding the dismissal of employment, with particular risks posed to our international students.

As graduate students, we are united in withholding our labor, which is crucial to the university’s function,  and encourage faculty to demonstrate respective solidarity, acknowledging differing vulnerabilities across the graduate and faculty body. We hope that this solidarity in Feminist Studies for a full work stoppage can, in turn, be an example for other departments to take such action. We ask faculty for this form of solidarity as it will greatly increase the impact and effectiveness of this strike in moving us towards a COLA by affirming the value of our labor while demonstrating a significant force of graduate worker support to the administration. 

We support the call put out by the COLA campaign organizers, which offers many possibilities for supporting the picket. We want to point out that zoom should not be used when possible because of the way that it furthers the casualization of labor in the university. At the same time, we recognize that this may be the best option for some lecturers, whose status as employees of the UC is extremely precarious and can be used strategically as it is an accessible option. While a full work stoppage means cancellation of sections and classes, we recognize the picket as a site of feminist praxis. This makes the picket line an opportunity for students to learn about the COLA campaign and its significance in a larger context of education privatization, labor organizing, the neoliberal structure of the university and its circuits of capital more broadly. Please advocate for your students to come to the picket, learn and build community in support of their TA’s, share information about the strike and imagine the university differently.

We look forward to seeing you all at the picket line Monday morning beginning at 7:30 AM. 

In Solidarity,

  • Lani Hanna
  • Claire Urbanski
  • Gabe Evans
  • Taylor Wondergem
  • Noya Kansky
  • Anne Fosburg
  • Anne Napatalung
  • Marina Segatti
  • Emily Padilla
  • Jessica Calvanico
  • Elana Santana
  • Yizhou Guo
  • Vivian Underhill
  • To add a signature (DE’s or other) click here

One faculty response to Monday’s strike

Here is one faculty member’s response to Monday’s activities, and the intimidating email from Public Affairs (“Unsanctioned strike by some graduate students”, 2/7). We thank this faculty member and hope this inspires others to show similar examples of solidarity.

I am canceling next week’s classes. Please report me for doing so.

Dear all,

Some at this university, it seems, would like to see its students function as amateur police. In a last-ditch effort to frighten faculty and graduate students away from demonstrating support for a living-wage campaign, a message went out across campus this afternoon that includes a form that allows you to report that a class, section, or office hours has been canceled, moved, or repurposed.

Simply put, I believe that you deserve better than an education that comes at the direct expense of those who teach courses and sections, hold office hours, grade papers, mentor and advise you, conduct valuable research, and do much more to make this campus fulfill its claim to be an institution of public higher education. Having attended and received my Ph.D. from UCSC, I went into well over $100,000 in debt while doing so. 

I have much respect for those who, upon finding the cost of living unbearable, have chosen at considerable risk to fight for a cost of living adjustment. They are doing so, it seems, for themselves, for each other, and for those who will attend this and other universities in the future. The university is striking back hard now because they sense the potential for this campaign to spread, because the conditions that make it necessary are already widespread enough as to pose a meaningful threat to the future of higher education in general.

For that reason, I am canceling classes next week, and I would like to invite you to report me for doing so. On my decision—not your TAs’—sections are canceled as well. By canceling class, I am choosing to do something that I believe is my responsibility as a faculty member: to fight for the long-term viability and integrity of higher education. Without a cost of living adjustment, I simply do not believe it to be possible that UCSC can continue to provide education with integrity. When our undergraduate and graduate students regularly face eviction, heavy rent burden, and food insecurity, it radically impacts our ability to serve a diverse student population. Conditions in which students struggle so much to live are not conditions in which education can flourish.

So if you like, report me now. Report me throughout the weekend, and throughout the week to come. Report me multiple times, if you please. The form, I should note, is not anonymous: it records your e-mail address. I am proud to be reported, and invite you to do so for any reason at all—frustration, annoyance, apathy, and/or solidarity with the cancelation of class.

Whatever consequences may ensue, I welcome. I am proud to bear some of the risk with our striking graduate students.