Dear campus community,
My name is Sarah Mason, and I am the co-Vice President of Shared Governance of the GSA and the former unit chair of our campus union. I am writing to help contextualize this email and hopefully answer any questions it may raise.
The University has expressed a concern that if they sit down to negotiate with anyone other than the officially recognized union to settle a labor dispute, they would be in violation of labor law. Fortunately, we have a representative of that officially recognized union on our campus. Accordingly, UAW 2865 Santa Cruz Unit Chair Veronica Hamilton has reached out to UCSC and formally requested, on behalf of the Union, our union, to meet and confer over our demand for a COLA. There is nothing in labor law that prevents an employer and a union from voluntarily agreeing to reopen contracts. Nothing. In fact, this happens all the time when both sides recognize that there is a pressing issue that wasn’t addressed in regular contract negotiations. We have requested such a “reopener” negotiation.
In terms of specifics, there are multiple ways that UC could settle this. We believe – and our lawyers concur – that the strongest mechanism would be for the University to sit down with Santa Cruz representatives of UAW 2865 and voluntarily agree to reopen the contract to bargain a COLA side letter. Side letters are commonly utilized by unions to bargain when they need to address issues not directly covered by the main articles of the contract (like workload, wages, etc.). Side letters can address single campuses and there is ample precedent for UC contracts to include side letters dealing with campus-specific issues. Our most recent contract, for instance, includes two side letters that address the specific needs of UC San Diego graduate students. Side letters can also be broader than the main body of the contract and can cover people not working in the bargaining unit, like GSRs, non-working graduate students, etc. There are other notable instances of side letters in our bargaining history with the UC, too: in our 2014 contract, we bargained a side letter about the creation of a fellowship program for undocumented graduate students who could not legally work in our bargaining unit. We are not blazing new legal ground here. We are simply asking the University to agree to address this vital need that graduate students and workers in Santa Cruz have, using the same legal mechanisms that they have used in the past.
Reopening our contract to bargain a side letter is the best way to ensure that any gains we get are not just by administrative fiat (and therefore revocable), but are actually enshrined in a legally enforceable agreement.
One other thing needs to be said to put into perspective the University’s concern that any settlement talks would be illegal. If this concern were true, it would never be possible to settle a wildcat strike. However, we all know for a fact that wildcat strikes are successfully settled all the time. The West Virginia teacher strike in 2018 is a prominent recent example. There, too, state officials claimed that they couldn’t legally negotiate with the strikers… until they did just that and the strikers successfully won their demands.
The university has continued to hide behind vague claims about the “law” and label this strike an “illegal work stoppage.” They have also retrodden their claims that they are working on both “short-term and long-term solutions” to the effects the housing crisis has had on UCSC grads. But we know the deployment of this administrative language is only a stalling tactic: they are choosing not to meet with us. Graduate students have called their bluff, and are not backing down.
Over the past few weeks, we have shown the administration that grad students cannot wait for a COLA. We have built a powerful movement and have withheld our labor from the university at a critical time. Our strike is massive and impressive, but it’s not over! Like in the West Virginia teachers’ strike, our sustained collective power and solidarity will be the deciding factors in helping us win our demand: a COLA.
In anticipation of any announcements from the university, we want to reiterate the exigency that any offer of a cost-of-living adjustment for graduate students must contain the following conditions:
1) That it bring UCSC grad students out of rent burden;
2) To parity with grad students at UC Riverside, adjusted for the cost of rent;
3) the inclusion of “no retaliation” and “no student conduct charges” clauses, to ensure that no disciplinary actions be taken 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;
4) a clause explicitly stating that any funding of a COLA cannot cause or result in an increase of tuition, fees, or any other expenses charged to graduate or undergraduate students (or cuts to existing resources).
There will be substantive discussions to be had about the pros and cons of any proposal that comes in (when it does), but we unwaveringly affirm that graduate students will decide when and how to end this strike. Any bargaining sessions held around COLA will be open in the fullest sense of the word: every striking graduate student will be able to attend and have their say.
Solidarity forever,
Sarah