Hundreds of members of United Auto Workers Local 4811, a union representing 48,000 student employees, postdocs and academic researchers across the UC system, held a protest at the steps below the Campanile on March 12 over alleged unfair labor practices by the university.
According to union sources, union leaders will decide by March 15 whether they will initiate a strike, which could begin as soon as next week.
Richard Villagomez, a head steward and undergraduate tutor for Data 8, said the protest was the union’s “last chance” to show the UC system that they are leveraging a “very real” strike threat if no fair contract is reached.
“UC still hasn’t agreed to things like fair wages and strong international worker protections, and they’ve been bargaining in bad faith, breaking the law, doing things like cutting appointments in half unilaterally, capping TA appointments, and imposing new fees,” Villagomez said.
Many of the hundreds of protesters in attendance were, or had been, graduate student instructors, or GSIs. Noelle Blose, a graduate student researcher and former GSI in the physics department, said she was driven to attend the protest after witnessing alleged harsh cuts to the department’s GSI staff.
“The physics department cut our GSI staff to one-half the usual numbers,” Blose said, “The workload for the intro courses is always the highest for any of the GSIs in the physics department, and these cuts functionally meant that we could barely run the classes. The discussion and lab sections were so overcrowded. We couldn’t answer questions.”
Former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter — who is currently a candidate for California governor — also attended the protest. Porter marched in the picket line and met with union leaders about an hour after the protest began.
“I am here to support labor unions,” Porter said. “I’m here to support the people who make the UCs great, the people who are in the trenches every day teaching and running this university. They are workers and they need to be able to afford to live and to thrive.”
Porter, who is a UCI law professor, also said she taught at UC Berkeley as a visiting professor in 2009 and 2010, focusing on consumer protection. She added that she sees a lot of parallels between the union movement and consumer protection in their shared fight for economic justice.
Porter also emphasized the importance of treating university workers like any other employee in the private or public sector.
“(The UCs) want to be their own category,” Porter said. “But at the end of the day, they’re paying payroll, and they need to honor the labor laws.”
In a statement, UC Office of the President spokesperson Heather Hansen said the UC has been bargaining in good faith with the union in their mediation talks.
Hansen added that the number of bargaining units makes negotiations more complex.
“Our focus is on making real progress while ensuring any agreements are financially sustainable and workable across the entire UC system,” Hansen said in an email. “We strongly disagree with the union’s unfair labor practice claims, which can be filed during negotiations before they are reviewed or determined to have merit. Real progress happens at the bargaining table, and that is where UC remains focused.”