Last week, UC sent a clear message to Academic Workers: they expect us to remain silent, divided, and obedient. As UC-UAW members across the state organize and escalate to hold UC accountable to the agreement it signed last Fall, the university is attempting to curtail workers’ collective power and right to protest. Can you take a minute to sign this petition calling on UC leadership to drop the false charges against 67 peaceful protesters?
UC issues false misconduct charges to 67 UCSD academic workers
At UCSD, we and our coworkers have organized countless grievances, petitions, and demonstrations over the last five months. Most recently, we staged a peaceful protest during UCSD’s 44th Annual Alumni Awards Celebration, calling on Chancellor Pradeep Khosla to uphold the contracts that UC signed with our unions. Instead of heeding our calls to fully fund and implement our contracts, UCSD has chosen to try to silence and intimidate us by issuing 67 of us trumped-up student misconduct charges. Nearly half of us charged weren’t even at the protest, and all of us have been accused of blatantly false charges like “physical assault” for peacefully calling on UC to respect our contractual rights.
Khosla and the UCSD admin think they can silence us, but we will continue to organize and enforce our rights. Let’s show UC we are all united in our fight to uphold our contracts. Sign the petition calling on UC leadership to drop the charges and take immediate action!
UC opposes formation of a single contract for Student-Workers
Though last January members of the UAW 2865 Joint Council voted overwhelmingly to bring Graduate Student Researchers and Academic Student Employees together to form one union under one contract, the University of California has officially come out in opposition. Last week, UC responded to a petition to merge the GSR and ASE units into a single contract arguing that the job titles and responsibilities are too disparate to join under one bargaining unit and that merging would make bargaining too difficult.
This is yet another blatant attempt by UC to undermine our collective power by keeping Academic Workers divided. Previously, UC opposed having all Academic Researcher jobs in a single bargaining unit, and they are still opposing adding about 150 Math Postdocs to the Postdoc unit. Over the next month, members will be coming together to discuss how to respond to UC’s last-gasp attempts to undermine our unity.
Solidarity,
Maya Gosztyla, Biomedical Sciences
Adam Cooper, Chemistry
Gwenevere Frank, Electrical & Computer Engineering
Hiya Datta, Chemistry
Abhik Pal, Mathematics
Allison Baker, History
Matthew Ehrlich, History
Cassandra Henderson, Oceanography
Alexia Fabiani, Biological Sciences
Beverly Naigles, Biological Sciences
Ahmed Allibhoy, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Tiffany Zhou, Bioengineering
Udayan Tandon, Computer Science
Ahmed Akhtar, Physics
Adu Vengal, Mathematics
Laura Beebe, Biological Sciences
Alex Wenzel, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
Kevin Gonzalez, Neuroscience
Joyce Chan, Neuroscience
Cody Poulsen, Oceanography
Lucas Deyglun, Structural Engineering
Bhargavi Dameracharla, Computer Science & Engineering
Natalia Erazo, Oceanography
Jayden Wood, Teaching+Learning Commons
Briar Conger, Oceanography
Philipp Arndt, Oceanography
Conor O’Herin, Chemistry
Srividya Ganapathy, Pediatrics
Kyle Kehrer, Physics
Ximena Garcia Arceo, Chemistry
Amy Kanne, Computer Science & Engineering