Hello Fellow Graduate Students,
Today, our statewide union responded to the argument that administrators on our campus have been using to avoid addressing the extreme cost of living in Santa Cruz. EVC Lori Kletzer has said multiple times, to students, faculty, and staff, that the university cannot talk with graduate students without UAW 2865 involved. As your campus unit chair, I have stated many times that I am available to receive their proposed solution. In response, administrators claimed that they could not meet with us due to the possibility that UAW 2865 could file an Unfair Labor Practice Charge against the University. We have received confirmation today that UAW 2865 does not intend to do that (click here to learn more).
Graduate students at UC Santa Cruz have effectively communicated that we will not submit to business as usual when we cannot afford our rent, when our refrigerators are empty, when we can’t afford medical bills, or to heat our apartments. Graduate students have stood up to the university and said: enough! We are tired of administrative excuses. It’s time for a COLA and we will not stop until we get it! Santa Cruz has led this fight because we know that we can win. We will continue to lead this fight as we see other campuses join in a collective struggle for COLA for all of us!
Make no mistake: this is a concrete win for the COLA campaign. Many of you know that statewide overruled a majority of Santa Cruz grad students in order to accept an intolerable contract in 2018, our current collective bargaining agreement. A 3% wage increase does not even begin to alleviate our ever-deepening rent burdens here in Santa Cruz. Meanwhile, Santa Cruz union representatives looked in vain to statewide for campus organizing funds, and even for the ability to email our campus union members. Statewide UAW has opted to stick to the letter of our contract by not endorsing our wildcat strike. Some of you may have even received a letter signed by the UAW 2865 President in December, advising you to stop striking and return to work. Now, this same UAW 2865 President has signed a letter calling the University to the negotiating table. While statewide has kept their language strategically vague, saying that they “believe the circumstances have changed to such a degree as to necessitate immediate bargaining over this important issue [of cost of living],” these words are not hard to translate. It’s not that “circumstances have changed”; it’s that with the power of our strike we have changed the circumstances.
What happens next?
As UAW Santa Cruz Unit Chair, I have made my desire to meet with administration crystal clear. Statewide leadership has now said to the University: “Please advise us of dates you would like to meet.” While we wait for the University’s response, secure in the knowledge that any legal barriers to a meeting have now evaporated, we insist that any negotiations with administration must prioritize the voices of rank and file members at UCSC. We’ve demanded a COLA for all graduate students. We’ve demanded non-retaliation for strikers. We’ve demanded that COLA cannot be funded by increasing graduate or undergraduate tuition. These demands remain the same. In my messaging to statewide, I will say what statewide might rather leave unsaid — that we, not statewide, will have brought the University to the bargaining table. Any UAW 2865 bargaining team negotiating an end to the Santa Cruz strike must be led by Santa Cruz grad students.
(Reminder: Click here to fill out the COLA Straw Poll)
In Solidarity,
Veronica Hamilton