Help prevent admin from using snitch form to punish TAs!

On February 7, Public Affairs sent a mass email asking undergraduates to report classes and sections that have been cancelled or modified as a result of the teaching strike. The form even asks for the names of TAs, suggesting that admin may want to use this information to punish TAs who may have decided to participate in the strike by withholding their labor.

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student, you can help prevent admin from using submissions to this form to punish TAs who are fighting to be paid enough to survive in Santa Cruz. Follow the instructions below, and spread the message to fellow grads, fellow undergrads, or undergrads that you teach using the email template below the instructions!

Instructions

  1. Go to the Google Form that Public Affairs sent out in their February 7 email.
  2. Using this random UCSC class finder, pick a UCSC class and enter the class name into the Google Form. Use the class’s meeting time as the answer to the question “What was the scheduled meeting time?”
  3. Make a random selection for the questions titled “Did this disruption concern…” and “What type of disruption occurred?”.
  4. For “What day did the disruption occur?” use one of the dates of the full teaching strike (2/10 or later).
  5. As the TA/Instructor name, use a name from this random first and last name generator. Don’t use names like Cynthia Larive that easily identify a submission as fake.
  6. Make between one and four separate form submissions. Ideally, these submissions should come from lots of different people.
  7. SPREAD THE WORD!

Hello, <NAME/GROUP>!

As you may have seen in the email from Public Affairs on February 7, admin is trying to encourage students to snitch on TAs who are participating in the strike. I feel that it is unjust that the administration wants to punish grad students when they are simply fighting for a living wage. Here’s an easy way that you can help make the information they receive unusable:

  1. Go to the Google Form that Public Affairs sent out in their email
  2. Put in a random UCSC class name using this random UCSC class generator. Where the form says “What was the scheduled meeting time?”, enter the time from the class generator.
  3. Make a random selection for the “Did this disruption concern…” question and for the “What type of disruption occurred?” question.
  4. As the TA/Instructor name, pick a name from this random first and last name generator.
  5. Make between one and four separate form submissions, one for each random class. Ideally, these submissions should come from LOTS of different people.

Please forward this message to any/all other undergrads you know!

Strike Updates Day 3

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: 

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!

Tuesday (and Tomorrow)

Graduate wildcats went back out on strike again today. We give our eternal and overwhelming thanks to the undergrads who showed up, stood by our sides, were threatened by an army of cops from all across the Bay Area – surely costing the university tens, hundreds, of thousands of unnecessary dollars. Police apparently reported that they were going to do “whatever they needed to do.” What, exactly, do they need to do? What are they afraid of? 

Faculty, again, marched down from campus and met for a Faculty Assembly at 4. We are so grateful for their continued work with and alongside us. Tomorrow, they will meet at the Women’s Center at 11 and march at 11:30 am down to the base of campus. We look forward to seeing them there.

Lori Kletzer and Quentin Williams, meanwhile, granted a meeting with three graduate students and two faculty members (remember when they said they couldn’t meet with us?). In today’s meeting, grads reiterated that all decisions would be made collectively and told admin to offer them something to take back to our general assembly. What did admin offer us? 1) no money offer, and 2) a “substantive meeting”, where we might discuss financial resources, should we call off the strike. At our 4:30 pm General Assembly, grads, of course, did not see this as sufficient to call off the strike. So, we go back out at 7:30 am again tomorrow. This decision will be reported to them tomorrow when we meet with them again.

We will have an Organizing Committee meeting at 8:00 am close to the sign. 4:30 pm is our General Assembly. Look out for other events/ updates. All are welcome.

Solidarity.

Striking graduate students

Strike Updates Day 1

Adapted from an email by Joe Klein to Anthropology colleagues


Some news and updates from the first day of the strike:

Today, several hundred of graduate students, undergraduate students, faculty, lecturers, staff, and others rallied at both entrances to UCSC’s main campus, and joint actions were happening at 5 other UC campuses. The UCSC picket line was successful in disrupting all metro bus service to campus throughout the morning. Then, in a brilliant burst of energy, a huge group of faculty wearing regalia and carrying signs and banners marched through the street to the picket line down from the Women’s Center. This amazing burst of energy gave strikers the numbers and courage to join their faculty in the streets, and to shut down the main entrance to campus. Strikers took and held the entrance to campus, and eventually took over the entire intersection of Bay and High.

However, after most faculty had left, the response by UCSC police became aggressive and violent. Throughout the morning, there were dozens of UC police officers present at both entrances, brought in (with UCSC money) from across the Bay Area, attempting to intimidate and provoke strikers.

By the afternoon, the police had barricaded surrounding streets to prevent cars from driving near the picket. A young woman drove past the barricade to deliver water to the strikers, and upon arrival at the picket, was arrested by the approximately 30 UC police and CHP officers stationed at the base of campus. Strikers linked arms in nonviolent protest of this absurd arrest, and the police charged through the crowd in formation, batons out. Several UCSC students were beaten with batons; at least one student ended up at the Health Center after being hit on the head. In their words, “after getting beaten by three officers I went to the health center and I have a concussion and strained neck/back/shoulder.”

After this incident, police retreated and students continued to hold the intersection, initiating meetings, rallies, and dancing. We ended the day at about 5pm with a big general assembly.

So far there is only silence from the administration. So tomorrow the strike continues!

Some ideas of things to do:

  • Come to the picket line in the morning, with as many friends and colleagues as possible, as early as you can. It begins at 7:30. In particular, visible faculty presence seems to deter police aggression.
  • Write our administration and tell them how you feel about students being beaten by bussed-in police.
  • Cancel your classes and sections due to the ongoing strike if you feel able.
  • Inform your undergraduate students that attendance to class is flexible due to the strike.
  • For faculty, change your email signatures to indicate that you teach and advise severely rent burdened students.

Thank you all for your support, and special thanks to our faculty who showed up to join us on the picket today. We are so grateful! See you tomorrow!

Feminist Studies Grads Call for Full Work Stoppage

We are writing as Feminist Studies Graduate students in support of the full strike for a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) beginning Monday, February 10, 2020.

As graduate workers in this department, attuned to the structural conditions of the neoliberal labor market which inform the workings of the university, we feel assured in calling for a full work stoppage and are asking faculty to support by canceling classes, not crossing and the picket line and joining strikers at the base of campus instead. We make this ask, unequivocally, for this coming Monday and Tuesday and will maintain lines of communication regarding further action later in the week. A work stoppage is made all the more urgent in light of escalating threats from the administration regarding the dismissal of employment, with particular risks posed to our international students.

As graduate students, we are united in withholding our labor, which is crucial to the university’s function,  and encourage faculty to demonstrate respective solidarity, acknowledging differing vulnerabilities across the graduate and faculty body. We hope that this solidarity in Feminist Studies for a full work stoppage can, in turn, be an example for other departments to take such action. We ask faculty for this form of solidarity as it will greatly increase the impact and effectiveness of this strike in moving us towards a COLA by affirming the value of our labor while demonstrating a significant force of graduate worker support to the administration. 

We support the call put out by the COLA campaign organizers, which offers many possibilities for supporting the picket. We want to point out that zoom should not be used when possible because of the way that it furthers the casualization of labor in the university. At the same time, we recognize that this may be the best option for some lecturers, whose status as employees of the UC is extremely precarious and can be used strategically as it is an accessible option. While a full work stoppage means cancellation of sections and classes, we recognize the picket as a site of feminist praxis. This makes the picket line an opportunity for students to learn about the COLA campaign and its significance in a larger context of education privatization, labor organizing, the neoliberal structure of the university and its circuits of capital more broadly. Please advocate for your students to come to the picket, learn and build community in support of their TA’s, share information about the strike and imagine the university differently.

We look forward to seeing you all at the picket line Monday morning beginning at 7:30 AM. 

In Solidarity,

  • Lani Hanna
  • Claire Urbanski
  • Gabe Evans
  • Taylor Wondergem
  • Noya Kansky
  • Anne Fosburg
  • Anne Napatalung
  • Marina Segatti
  • Emily Padilla
  • Jessica Calvanico
  • Elana Santana
  • Yizhou Guo
  • Vivian Underhill
  • To add a signature (DE’s or other) click here

One faculty response to Monday’s strike

Here is one faculty member’s response to Monday’s activities, and the intimidating email from Public Affairs (“Unsanctioned strike by some graduate students”, 2/7). We thank this faculty member and hope this inspires others to show similar examples of solidarity.


I am canceling next week’s classes. Please report me for doing so.

Dear all,

Some at this university, it seems, would like to see its students function as amateur police. In a last-ditch effort to frighten faculty and graduate students away from demonstrating support for a living-wage campaign, a message went out across campus this afternoon that includes a form that allows you to report that a class, section, or office hours has been canceled, moved, or repurposed.

Simply put, I believe that you deserve better than an education that comes at the direct expense of those who teach courses and sections, hold office hours, grade papers, mentor and advise you, conduct valuable research, and do much more to make this campus fulfill its claim to be an institution of public higher education. Having attended and received my Ph.D. from UCSC, I went into well over $100,000 in debt while doing so. 

I have much respect for those who, upon finding the cost of living unbearable, have chosen at considerable risk to fight for a cost of living adjustment. They are doing so, it seems, for themselves, for each other, and for those who will attend this and other universities in the future. The university is striking back hard now because they sense the potential for this campaign to spread, because the conditions that make it necessary are already widespread enough as to pose a meaningful threat to the future of higher education in general.

For that reason, I am canceling classes next week, and I would like to invite you to report me for doing so. On my decision—not your TAs’—sections are canceled as well. By canceling class, I am choosing to do something that I believe is my responsibility as a faculty member: to fight for the long-term viability and integrity of higher education. Without a cost of living adjustment, I simply do not believe it to be possible that UCSC can continue to provide education with integrity. When our undergraduate and graduate students regularly face eviction, heavy rent burden, and food insecurity, it radically impacts our ability to serve a diverse student population. Conditions in which students struggle so much to live are not conditions in which education can flourish.

So if you like, report me now. Report me throughout the weekend, and throughout the week to come. Report me multiple times, if you please. The form, I should note, is not anonymous: it records your e-mail address. I am proud to be reported, and invite you to do so for any reason at all—frustration, annoyance, apathy, and/or solidarity with the cancelation of class.

Whatever consequences may ensue, I welcome. I am proud to bear some of the risk with our striking graduate students.

Admin cancels February Friendship First Friday

Quentin Williams cancelled the Graduate Student Commons “February Friendship First Friday,” a popular recurring grad student community event, because it was advertised as a “strike activity.”


From: Quentin Williams
Date: Fri, Feb 7, 2020
To: GSC Governing Board

Hi GSC Governing Board,

Let me be a bit more clear: the FF event is being (and has been) advertised as a strike activity. That cannot be supported by the campus, approved by the campus, or be associated with organizations on the campus. I have cancelled university approval of the event, associated PO’s, alcohol approval, etc.
It is cancelled.

Sincerely,
Quentin Williams
aVPDGS


From: Graduate Student Commons <gscommon@ucsc.edu>
Date: Fri, Feb 7, 2020, 1:42 PM
Subject: [grads-group] GSC FIRST FRIDAY CANCELLED
To: <grads-group@ucsc.edu>

Dear Graduate Students,

We apologize for the short notice and untimely announcement that our February Friendship First Friday, to be held today at 5 – 7 pm at the GSC, has been cancelled by the University administration. They withdrew all funding and support related to this event due to the purported presence of “strike activity”.

This morning, the GSC Governing Board was informed 30 minutes before going shopping for food and drink that we have lost our funding for First Friday. Shortly after, we received an email from the University administration officially cancelling First Friday.

The Graduate Student Commons is a space for all graduate students to access and enjoy. All graduate students with a registered student ID card should still have 24-hour access* to the GSC.

*If you haven’t received 24 hour access, please stop at the GSC front desk TODAY before 5pm to have a student intern program your student ID card.

We again, apologize for the short-notice and we are grateful for all our graduate students who have dedicated their time to support and attend our events. And while this event has been canceled, we especially want to acknowledge the time and effort that many grads put toward planning it.

If you still want to meet up with your fellow graduate students tonight, join us downtown at Salsa Night at the Palomar from 8:15 to 11:30 PM!

Sincerely,
Graduate Student Commons Governing Board

International Graduate Student Employees (ASEs) and the STRIKE

Email sent February 6, 2020, 5:13 PM

Fellow international striking graduate student employees (ASEs),

Following the recent letter of disciplinary warning that many of us received yesterday, we have been in touch with the International Student & Scholar Services (ISSS) and immigration and labor lawyers working with us pro bono. We learned the following:

  • Striking is within your rights as international ASEs. Participating in a labor strike is not unlawful, and we are looking to issue an attorney-signed statement that certifies your right to strike.

  • Following the GSA presidents’ email on Feb 4, titled Response to “Written Warning for Withholding Undergraduate Student Grades”, Santa Cruz UAW chair, Veronica Hamilton, will be in touch with each of us individually to grieve this letter. We encourage everyone to initiate a grievance process when she gets back to you.

  • Threats to losing one’s F1 status may occur if you participate in a risky action (like occupying a building) and are arrested. Accordingly, we recommend that you limit your strike actions to labor-related activities.

  • The other threat to your F1 status may occur if you are no longer enrolled full-time. Under-enrollment could happen whether one is on strike or not. Every quarter, ISSS checks whether you are enrolled full-time, and if you are not, they notify and ask you to enroll accordingly. If, following multiple attempts to have you enrolled, and you are still not, ISSS would begin to investigate why you are under-enrolled, which ultimately may affect your F1 status.

  • In an unlikely case that, as a retaliation to your strike activity, your future employment is revoked and your tuition and fees are not covered, you may not be able to enroll full-time. This may only occur after a series of escalations on the part of the admin – which UAW will grieve on your behalf. It is our recommendation that you strike hard and in great numbers to render the administration’s threats of escalation futile. Our strength is in our numbers!

  • Finally, we are working with attorneys from the East and West coasts to support you, and will have pro bono representation for every one of you, should you ever need that.

In solidarity,

Striking International Graduate Students

[From Admin] Opportunities for Dialogue

February 7, 2020 3:49 PM
To: UC Santa Cruz Community
From: Interim Campus Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer <officeofcpevc@ucsc.edu>
Subject: Opportunities for dialogue

On January 27, Chancellor Larive announced two new programs to support our graduate students. Despite these efforts, we were disappointed that some of our TAs—200 of whom continue to withhold grades—last week threatened to escalate their activity to a full teaching strike. The threatened action violates the collective bargaining agreement that the University of California has with the TA’s union, the UAW. The collective bargaining agreement memorializes the rights of employees (here, the TAs and GSIs) and employers (here, the University of California). One of the central benefits bargained for by the University is the right to be free of any strikes during the term of the agreement. We expect our TAs who are union members to abide by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.  

Nonetheless, in an effort to open up dialogue, we had two important meetings with graduate students this week. The first was a meeting at the UC system level between representatives from the Office of the President and the UAW Executive team who represent students across all campuses. That took place in Irvine on Wednesday. The second meeting occurred yesterday. I, along with Director of Employee & Labor Relations Jennifer Schiffner, joined the Acting Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Quentin Williams, and Graduate Student Association (GSA) co-presidents Yulia Gilichinskaya and Antony Boardman.

At the second meeting, we discussed collaborating towards building better support for all PhD and MFA students, not just union members. As part of this effort and to ensure productive conversation, we shared our willingness to pause employee disciplinary and student conduct processes for one week if graduate students paused all strike activities. These meetings are a positive step toward coming together as a community to face our shared challenges.

We certainly hope that these meetings mark the start of a new dynamic with our graduate students and a renewed sense of cooperation. Our graduate students play an important role in the educational mission of UCSC and we understand and empathize with the financial burden that results from the current housing crisis for many on our campus. It is only by working together that we can find solutions as a community.

However, if students decide to proceed with the threatened strike escalation they will violate the collective bargaining agreement that UC has with the UAW. In fact, the UAW notified the Academic Student Employees (ASEs) directly today that such strike activity is unauthorized and violates the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. As articulated in the agreement, participation in the strike will lead to consequences up to and including dismissal from employment.

This has been a challenging time for our community, especially our undergraduate students. I am hopeful we will find a path toward resolution and look forward to the opportunity to dialogue.

Sincerely,

Lori Kletzer
Interim Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor

Response to “Opportunities for Dialogue”

Dear Strikers and Faculty,

We are writing in response to Lori Kletzer’s email, “Opportunities for dialogue.” First, we are encouraged by Kletzer’s willingness to meet with us. We affirm that we are ready to engage in productive dialogue in order to reach a favorable resolution to the ongoing strike. However, we are deeply concerned that the parameters of the meeting being proposed will make such a resolution impossible.  We are currently pushing for a meeting that would be acceptable for us. Additionally, given our impending strike action, we are concerned that Kletzer’s email is a bad faith attempt to interrupt the momentum we have built and persuade graduate students to abandon the strongest leverage we have. We hope that this email will help you to better understand the University’s messaging today and our response to it. 

Most importantly, we believe that any decision to “pause” the strike must be made by all graduate students and not a handful of representatives. We will have a General Assembly on the picket line (base of campus) on Monday, February 10 at 4:30 PM. At this meeting, we will raise the question of “pausing” the strike for all to consider. We encourage everyone to participate. 

Before we contextualize, here’s the TL;DR:

  • Administration has still not made any offer to meet our demand.
  • Administration has still not even agreed to bargain over our demand.
  • Based on the conversations we have had thus far with administration, we do not believe that another “touch base” style discussion will yield any meaningful movement towards a COLA.  We need formal negotiations. 
  • To get us to “pause” our strike, all administration would offer is a pause on “employee disciplinary and student conduct processes for one week”. (our italics)
  • Administration can meet with us. 

—-

On January 31, Graduate Student Association co-presidents Yulia Gilichinskaya and Tony Boardman received an invitation to a “Winter Quarter Touch Base” with Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Quentin Williams and Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies Jim Moore. 

Many of us remember the administration’s constant refrain about meeting to bargain with striking grads (they were apparently “precluded by law from such direct dealing” during the strike) back in the most intense days of the Fall grading strike. To us, this private “Touch Base” meeting sounded like a way for administration to roll back their initial rhetoric without actually making any concessions — to meet with us without calling it a meeting with us, just “touching base.”

This “Touch Base” meeting occurred yesterday, February 6. Leading up to the meeting, admin was unforthcoming and underhanded — the location of the meeting was not announced until 30 minutes before it began, no agenda was distributed prior to it, and two additional, unannounced participants joined 10 minutes in. These were EVC Lori Kletzer and Director of Labor Relations Jennifer Schiffner. They asked if they could join the meeting, which was already in progress; GSA co-presidents, stunned but ready for dialogue, agreed.  

Kletzer and Schiffner took over the meeting. They wanted to discuss “de-escalation” options. They asked how GSA co-presidents could “pause” the strike. The co-presidents stated that not one person has this power, and only the administration can stop the strike by meeting our demands or, at the very least, engaging in good faith bargaining over the matter. Admin did suggest that if graduate students “pause” the strike, the administrators would pause further discipline. We want to be very clear; the administration has offered a week’s pause in their disciplinary action, not an end to them. In effect, the administrators have offered nothing; they have simply leveraged their disciplinary power. They admitted that discipline is an escalation on their part, and we presume they began disciplinary measures earlier this week so that they could use them as a bargaining chip today.

Gilichinskaya and Boardman reiterated that the strike will only end the way it began: when strikers vote on an offer from the administration with a dollar amount attached to it, that will bring us out of rent-burden and includes a guarantee of non-retaliation–not a pause. Since the administration did not make an offer but suggested a “pause” to retaliation, Boardman and Gilichinskaya said that the administration could put their suggestions in writing and send it to the campus community. The email from EVC Kletzer does not guarantee us any of these things we have been demanding since the beginning. In the meeting, Gilichinskaya and Boardman expressed that graduate students do not trust this administration after years of failed attempts to compel UCSC to improve their conditions. 

The administration claims they are ready for dialogue. We are too, and have been since December. Yet unlike our administrators, we have maintained a consistent position. We don’t respond to threats, implicit or explicit, or to back-channel, bad faith meetings. When this administration is serious about addressing our dire conditions, we will be, as ever, open to good faith discussions. As we have said from the beginning, and as the administration has now tacitly acknowledged, nothing prevents them from meeting with us while we are on strike

See you on the picket line!

Solidarity forever,
UAW 2865, Santa Cruz
GSA
Striking graduate students

Sarah Mason
Doctoral Student | Research Associate 
Sociology
University of California, Santa Cruz