Rally With K7 Workers

In comradely conversations between grad student TAs and K7 workers, we’ve heard K7 stories uncannily similar to the stories in the COLA testimonial emails. As one K7 worker put it, “we’re just trying to survive.” They’re fighting against unlivable wages, against outsourcing, and against gig economy labour practices. They’re fighting for campus safety, reasonable workloads, and increased support.

Grad student wildcat strikers have been looking to K7 for inspiration. The unanimity of their political will — all 49 members of their unit on strike — reminds us of the organizng work still to be done among our own rank and file. At the same time, K7 workers have found themselves galvanized by our wildcat, and have been moved by our decisiveness, the creativity of our organizing tactics, and the power of our numbers.

It’s not possible to overemphasize the boldness of the K7 action. It is the first indefinite full labor strike in UCSC’s recent institutional memory. Other rank and file union members, in AFSCME more broadly as well as in AFT, have their eyes trained on the K7 action. If it’s true that we’re on the edge of a period of radical labor unionism on this campus, then it’s no less true that the K7 strike is a decisive hinge.

The relative smallness of the K7 unit (50 members) means that they need us to show up. Many of us have already seen the university’s characteristic response. The trucks of independent contractors keep rolling up Bay Drive; the university scrambles to replace withheld labour using the same practices that K7 decries in their strike.

Here’s what you can expect when you show up tomorrow at 10am.

In solidarity with K7, and in the spirit of calls for we as a community to feed each other, some grad students have already committed to showing up to the picket with food. Participate in this mutual aid, if you’re able. Food Not Bombs will likely be bringing food!

We hope that tomorrow morning can be a time for connection and conversation between grad student wildcats and striking K7 workers. We hope that it will be a time to share tactical visions, fears and anxieties, hopes and inspirations. We hope that we can come together and ask how we can concretely support each other. Let’s show up for K7 at 10. If they plan another rally at noon, let’s stay for that too.