December 11th – The Message That Would Have Been Read to Admin Had They Attended The December 10th Meeting

Dear administration, 

We noticed earlier today that the email accounts of some top UCSC administrators, including those of Campus Provost/ EVC Lori Kletzer and Vice Provost/ Dean of Graduate Studies Quentin Williams, have been disabled or deactivated. We speculate that this might have been caused by the sheer volume of emails flowing into these accounts from undergraduate and intercampus allies expressing solidarity with the strike. We trust that any administrators reading this message will forward it to the owners of the disabled accounts. 

In this email you will find a statement that UAW and GSA representatives had planned to read to you, had you attended yesterday’s meeting. The statement is as follows: 

It is important for us to express that this movement, this strike and the reason we are here today is because people on this campus have had ENOUGH. Graduate students have organized with each other because we are fed up. 

The demands that this movement has produced are now beginning to extend beyond COLA. They reflect a huge range of needs that, while collective, cannot be understood quantitatively. 

There are undocumented students on this campus whose demands still have not been met. 

We will not be divided and pitted against each other! This is the beginning of a movement that far exceeds a graduate student COLA. 

Beyond COLA, there are campus-wide demands that must be addressed by the administration. COLA4ALL is now being raised as a slogan. This movement is growing. We suggest that you listen to these demands and take them seriously. They articulate that we all need to be paid enough to live here, and we anticipate unrest until that issue is addressed.

A match has been lit! Our wildcat grading strike for COLA is on fire and it shows no signs of subsiding. It is an enormous risk and we are taking it, collectively. We are not afraid! Undergraduate students have organized themselves to flyer their final exam classrooms in an incredible demonstration of solidarity. Our leafleting runs have been met by words of encouragement and interest—notably in the sciences—and solidarity social media posts from students and people affiliated with the university are flooding various platforms. We are getting widespread media coverage. Students at Berkeley have begun calling for a COLA. There has been a COLA rally at UC Davis. They’re saying “Bring UCSC militancy to Davis!” University staff members have broadly expressed their agreement with how we are carrying out these actions. And finally, 400 faculty (and counting) have now signed a petition in support of our demand. Let us reiterate: we have asked, clearly and many times, for a Cost of Living Adjustment for every* graduate student to bring us:

1. Out of rent burden

2. To parity with grad students at UC Riverside.

At current rates, this amounts to an additional $1,412 per month.** The COLA must be adjusted annually to keep up with the rental market. 

*Regardless of residence, visa, documentation, employment or funding status

 **Sharing a two- or three-bedroom apartment, based on median rental figures from April 2018 – August 2019 (source: Zillow Rental Index)

Additionally, UCSC must agree that it will not discipline or retaliate in any manner against any employee or non-employed student or union official, employee, steward, faculty or staff who engaged in any picketing and/or strike activity at any time. 

Furthermore, UCSC must agree that no measure taken to implement the terms of any agreement to resolve and settle the strike will cause or result in an increase of tuition, fees, or any other expenses charged to graduate or undergraduate students. We stand in unyielding solidarity with our undergraduate allies, and will not stand for attempts to drive a budgetary wedge between us.

We want to be very clear about this: Graduate students will decide when and how to end this strike. This is not a negotiation. Any good-faith offer which could plausibly end the strike will be put to all graduate students for a vote by straw poll, in the exact same way that the strike authorization was conducted. 

Are you ready to put more money in our bank accounts or are you ready to watch our movement grow?

Veronica Hamilton, M. A. 

University of California, Santa Cruz

Unit Chair- UAW 2865

GSA Internal Co-Vice President of Shared Governance

PhD student in Social Psychology

pronouns: she/her/hers