February 19, 2020
The doomsday clock is close to midnight. Janet Napolitano has spoken. If wildcat strikers do not submit grades and cease their strike activities by 11:59pm on Friday, February 21, over 200 graduate student workers risk being fired en masse by the UC.
The time to show up is now. The Undergrads for COLA Doomsday Rally and March is this Friday in the Quarry Plaza at 11am.
If carried out, the consequences of this mass firing will be severe. For many strikers, it would spell the end of academic careers at UCSC. For the many international grad students on strike, this means de facto deportation from the United States. The sudden absence of hundreds of TAs from campus will drastically limit the ability of academic departments to offer classes, impairing the ability of many to graduate. Undergraduate education, especially in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Arts, is likely to take a historically unprecedented hit. Contrary to the administration’s claims that they have your safety and well-being in mind, they propose sacking hundreds of graduate students—those who most closely mentor and supervise undergraduate academic work conducted at UCSC.
This Friday, we need your solidarity and your collective strength more than ever. Rally with us on Doomsday in the Quarry. March with us to the base of campus, where we will be joined by contingents from other rallies on campus—Faculty for COLA, STEM for COLA, Lecturers for COLA, and the many autonomous groups of students and workers springing up daily.
Solidarity will ripple across the UC system as the strike spreads. Our rally coincides with rallies and pickets planned at UC Davis, UCLA, UC Riverside, and UC Santa Barbara.
Beyond the UC, many thousands of workers, students, professors, members of the national media, the City Council of Santa Cruz, and a U.S. presidential candidate have thrown their support behind our movement. Which side will you be on when the clock strikes?
Undergrads for COLA! Solidarity forever!
