From Joe Klein
February 12, 2020
Dear Colleagues,
I wanted to write again with some updates from today’s strike.
Hundreds of graduate students, undergraduates, faculty, staff, lecturers, and others rallied for a third day at both entrances to campus. Energy was incredibly high all morning, and for the third day in a row, metro bus service to campus was disrupted due to the picket. In late morning, picketers from the west entrance to campus marched down Empire Grade to the main entrance of campus, where they joined the main picket and together the strikers peacefully closed down the main entrance to campus for the third day in a row. After being joined once again by faculty marching down from the Women’s center, hundreds of strikers again took over the entire intersection of Bay and High, and held the intersection for over 4 hours, graduate and undergraduate linked arm-in-arm in the face of the police. To my knowledge, this was the most significant show of student and worker power in UCSC’s recent memory.
For a third day, the UCSC administration’s police response has been unconscionable. At the behest of UCSC administrators, squads of police in riot gear again threatened, beat, bloodied, and arrested strikers. Police arrested 16 strikers who were sitting peacefully in circles. The full number of injured students is pending, but at least one student had her finger broken by police, another was bleeding profusely from his head after being hit by batons, and others received bruised ribs and bones. Many faculty witnessed these attacks and put themselves between the police and the strikers. Strikers refused to leave the streets until all of the arrested people were released. However one striker remains in police custody after choosing not to identify themselves; COLA organizers are working on supporting and ensuring this person’s release.
Today in a meeting with GSA representatives, EVC Lori Kletzer said that UCSC is spending $300,000 per day for these police; this amounts to a running total of $900,000 dollars for three days of police presence, and presumably $1.5 million come Friday. I wonder what else we could do with that kind of money?
An update on strike progress: Despite weeks and months of claiming tied hands, administrators continue to come to the table thanks to intense pressure from strikers. Yesterday, Santa Cruz city council unanimously voted to issue a letter of support for a COLA. And significantly, today, UCSC Director of Employment and Labor Relations Jennifer Schiffner sent a letter to our statewide union asking for a meeting this week. Remember that just a few weeks ago they claimed this was impossible; direct action does indeed get the goods. However as of yet, administration has failed to meet the demand for a COLA, so the strike continues!
Today’s action items:
- Join strikers on the picket line, beginning tomorrow at 7:30am. Please bring friends! You can also bring supplies: sunscreen, hand sanitizer, healthy food, and large containers of drinking water are always in demand.
- Cancel your classes and sections, and do not ask your students to cross the picket line.
- Push back the dates of midterm assignments, or as some instructors have done, cancel them.
- Write to the administration about how you feel about Lori Kletzer and Cynthia Larive sending police to beat and arrest your students.
- If you were a faculty member or student who witnessed or recorded video or photographs of police violence today, please 1) write to your colleagues about what you witnessed and 2) write a description of what you saw and send footage to: mas1218@gmail.com.
- If you are a faculty member, check in with your graduate students and undergraduates.
- Share media coverage of the strike:
As always, thank you so so much for your support, and extra special thanks to our undergraduates and to the faculty who came out to support strikers today–we are so grateful.
See you tomorrow!