Wildcat Strike

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GoFundMe
Funds go directly to UCSC student organizers to cover food and supplies for gatherings, picket activities, and docked pay if it incurs

Campaign Timeline
High-level summaries of important actions, decisions, and communications in the campaign since it began

Email Timeline
Record of important emails and other correspondences between grad students, faculty, and UC admin

Statements of Support
Collection of statements of support from different groups on campus (faculty, departments, divisions, undergrads, other unions), from Santa Cruz, from across the UC system, from groups at other universities, and from other unions

Rent Burden Calculator
Calculate your rent burden!

Meme Gallery
Because striking is a lot sometimes.

Though the UC continues to refuse to make any public concessions to the COLA movement,  over the past year striking student-workers forced many material gains across the system, winning wage increases and benefits on every campus that participated in labor actions. Many of these are charted here. We can only conclude that when we fight, we win.

End of UC Boycott

After months of struggle, Carlos Cruz – the single remaining wildcat striker who faced employment discipline from the UC Santa Cruz wildcat strike – will no longer be suspended. Though Carlos remains on conduct probation for two years, this decision means he can both work and complete his PhD again. Though we continue to fight for his student discipline to be entirely rescinded, this represents a victory, the culmination of months of organized efforts to fully end the discipline against wildcat strikers. (Click through for a full letter from Carlos to comrades and supporters.) 

As such, we have agreed that the UC boycott is officially over. We thank you for the continued pressure you have continued to exert upon the vast power of the UC. 

An Analysis of COLA Wins Statewide

Analysis of the many and multifaceted wins brought about by the COLA campaign, from Rank and File Action (RAFA), a labor caucus of academic student workers in the UC. Follow them!

And perhaps more importantly, the actions of organized rank-and-file ripple and magnify across the manifold arms of the University in surprising and potentially energizing ways. The sudden contract wins of AFSCME and the K7 workers at Santa Cruz are only two examples. These wins only underscore that it is the most precarious workers who must engage in the most tightly organized and militant labor actions, when they do so they can win.

RAFA

Latest Daily Sheet

Touted as an “integrated business tool,” ERM is designed to aid campus stakeholders in everything from investment choices to “managing” student and worker demonstrations. The ultimate objective of this program, as described by UCOP’s Grace Crikette, is to foster a healthy risk culture and “Make Everyone a Risk Manager.” This is exactly as creepy as it sounds, and it is baked into every level of the UC enterprise.

Read More (PDF) | Browse all Daily Sheets

A UC-Wide Campaign

Friday, Feb 21 – Hundreds of UCSB grad students march from the University Library to Cheadle Hall for a COLA, and in solidarity with UCSC graduate students. Photo by Max Abrams from the UCSB Daily Nexus.

UCSB: Twitter | Instagram | Website
UC Davis: Twitter | Instagram | Website
UC Berkeley: Twitter | Instagram | Website
UCLA: Twitter | Instagram
UCSD: Twitter | Instagram
UC Irvine: Twitter | Instagram
UC Riverside: Twitter | Instagram
UC Merced: Twitter
UCSF: Twitter

Faculty Organizing Group (FOG): Website
COLA4all / The People’s Coalition: Twitter | Instagram | Website
Strike University: Twitter | Instagram
COLA Agitation Committee: Twitter
COLA 4 Adjuncts: Twitter

Strike University

Strike University is a digital initiative created by COLA organizers across the UCs, that aims to provide public education that is free and accessible for everyone. Currently offering strike office hours, classes on organizing, mutual aid activism, phone bank training, a reading group, and watching parties.

Drop the Rent

A group of Santa Cruz housing activists and organizers from the COLA movement at UCSC ask Santa Cruz renters to fill in this survey (droprentsc.com). We are developing a network of tenants, both affiliated with UCSC and not, to gauge the political will for tenant organizing in Santa Cruz around rent forgiveness, eliminating rent burden, and forming mutual aid networks.

If our county won’t introduce proper rental protections, if our employers will not pay us enough to live here, if our state won’t support us through the pandemic, then we will drop the rent ourselves. Continue reading…

Undergraduate Withdrawal Petition

UCSC undergraduate students are proposing mass withdrawals for Spring quarter, in protest of the university charging full tuition for Spring, despite the inevitable decrease in educational quality wrought by the move to online-only teaching, and cuts in enrollment numbers due to the admin’s decision to fire 80+ TAs from their Spring appointments. Undergraduates, sign the petition to eliminate Spring tuition! Graduate students, educators, and friends, spread the petition to any UCSC undergraduates you know!

UAW files Unfair Labor Practice charges against UC

Feb 27 – Our statewide union, UAW 2865, filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charge against the University of California for refusing to meet with the union to negotiate COLA, while at the same time seeking to engage in unlawful bargaining directly with individual students and organizations (such as the UC Graduate and Professional Council). Read the UAW’s statement on the Feb 27 ULP here.

Mar 2 – The statewide union filed an additional ULP charge against the UC related to their unlawful actions regarding the termination and further acts of discipline meted out to Santa Cruz striking workers. Read the UAW’s statement on the Mar 2 ULP here.

COLA and rent burden whitepaper

Check out the whitepaper put together by comrades at UC Berkeley discussing rent burden across the UCs.

No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home is a wide-spanning research project on the crisis of lack of affordable housing in Santa Cruz County. Launched in Fall 2015, it strives to capture and explore the experiences, impacts, roots of, and potential responses to the housing crisis. Their website has a number of informative resources, including:

  • An interactive visualization of their renter survey responses
  • Identification of four key issues around the housing crisis as experienced by renters: rent burden, overcrowding, forced moves/evictions, and experiences with “major problems” (as defined by housing studies and scholarship on evictions)
  • Video stories and interviews with community members
  • A historical analysis of the causes of the crisis, including: changing demand, inadequate supply, lack of tenant protections or support despite overheated market conditions, and political roadblocks
  • Discussion of broad solution strategies

COLA Reddit AMA

On Thursday, Feb 20, 1-3pm, UCSC wildcat strikers hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything)—an open forum for the public to ask striking grad students any questions they want about the COLA campaign. Many hard questions were answered, and it accumulated over 1,000 comments. Read the questions, answers, and discussions >

Fighting Back Against Police Brutality

If you have been arrested or assaulted by police at the picket, contact us at payusmoreucsc@gmail.com so we can organize and support!

If you have photos or videos of arrests or police violence, please send to mas1218@gmail.com and payusmoreucsc@gmail.com.

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