UC-wide Call to Action:
May Day strike against austerity and unsafe working conditions
TL;DR: Our greatest weapon is the labor we can withhold from this institution. On May 1, do not log on to Canvas. Do not log on to Zoom. Do not respond to emails, do not grade, and do not submit papers. Do not go to work as usual. Reclaim the time you need to care for yourself and your community.
If you are currently living in Santa Cruz, you are invited to join us for a May Day Caravan, Friday from 12pm-4pm, as we honor those who are fighting and striking across our city. This will be a slow-moving, socially-distant action using car and bike transit, and our first in-person(ish) gathering since shelter-in-place began. Sign this commitment form to receive more details about our route. If you are not currently in Santa Cruz, you can still be part of our journey by following along on Instagram @payusmoreucsc and Twitter @payusmoreucsc.
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UC campuses across the state have formed these demands against the harmful learning environment and unsafe working conditions that have been imposed on us by the University of California in light of its decision to move to online instruction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Labour Relations Act guarantees the right to a safe workplace, and yet many of us work in our own inadequate, rent-burdened housing. On May Day we call attention to these issues:
1) UC has continued to demand rent and has scheduled a rent increase amidst the pandemic. UCSC operates its student housing as a company town, charging rent in Family Student Housing equivalent to many TAs’ annual salaries. Undergraduates who rely on on-campus housing during remote instruction are charged at business-as-usual rates, despite being shuffled around rooms in far-from-normal conditions. Most jobs and “side hustles” are unavailable to us in these times. The UC has the resources to support us in these emergency times, and yet they squeeze us tighter. We extend solidarity to all those unable or unwilling to pay rent this May 1st. Sign this petition to support FSH residents.
2) Grad workers need extended funding, but UC is giving us extended austerity: Amidst the pandemic, some UCs have extended normative time but UCSC has not announced any additional support for grad workers, while our research gets stalled, external grants get cancelled and academic jobs evaporate. You can use this form to tell the UC that they need to give us guaranteed summer funding, extend our time to degree and our funding packages by a year, drop Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition (NRST) for international grads, and waive its 18-quarter teaching limit (you’ll need to be signed into a UCSC email account to access the form). The months-long fight for a COLA has sought to highlight a fundamental, structural flaw within the UC system: Despite sitting on billions of dollars, the UC does not think its graduate student workers deserve a living wage and financial security when it accepts them into their “world-renowned” programs. The COVID-19 crisis has only exposed this racket for what it is. We demand better.
3) Without a COLA, our unsafe living conditions have become unsafe working conditions: Our homes, for those of us who have one, have become our new workspaces. These homes are unlivable, unstable, and therefore unsafe because the university has refused to provide students’ the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) necessary to meet even our most basic needs, forcing us into substandard housing that often pose multiple health risks resulting from mold to asbestos (see here, here, here, and here for examples). We are certain that many of our home/work spaces would not pass an Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspection. Furthermore, our wages force many of us to share extremely small spaces with multiple roommates. This not only puts us more at risk for contracting COVID-19, but also traps us in shared living situations that make us vulnerable to things like domestic abuse. This potential violence is only magnified for women, trans, and gender non-conforming people, as well as for people of color.
4) Zoom IS an unsafe workspace: Online instruction via Zoom exposes students and instructors to racist, anti-semitic attacks and sexual violence in the form of “Zoom-bombings.” These attacks have been occurring repeatedly in teach-ins, class sessions, meetings, and other events (see here, here, here, here, and here, for examples). Additionally, online instruction is an invasion of our privacy and is not a safe nor secure virtual classroom. Any Zoom call can be recorded without our knowledge or consent, and Zoom also shares emails and personal profiles with strangers, and permits third-party tracking of users’ information. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether and what user information Zoom is sharing with law enforcement. Zoom is a platform for white supremacists, and the UC is emboldening them; the partnership between the two comes at the expense of Black and Brown students and instructors in particular.
We have repeatedly made the university aware of these unsafe conditions, but they have not improved them.
Many of us at UCSC have been striking since Fall 2019. While our tactics have had to change, we continue to demand living wages so we can have housing, food and healthcare security for graduate student workers, undergraduate students, and all university workers. Our strike has spread across the state but the UC has ignored our concerns, responding instead with police brutality, terminations, and trumped-up student conduct summons. COVID-19 and the move to online teaching via Zoom has systematically worsened the crisis we were already living in. This Friday, join UC student workers across the state and graduate students across the country in calling for what we need to survive in this institution. While this is only a one-day strike, our main efforts are towards building a union-sanctioned ULP strike for a COLA. We need your pledge here.
Tell us here how you’ll be striking on May 1st. Please share this call with students and faculty who may want to participate.
Solidarity Forever!