During our 2022 strike, academic workers at UC advanced an ambitious set of demands around environmental justice and addressing climate change. Ultimately, we forced UC to commit to providing discounts on e-bikes by December 2023 and universal public transit by 2025. At the end of November, the UC Office of the President reached out with the specifics of these discounts—and added that they were extending the discounts to all UC employees.
Academic workers’ victory means that approximately 230,000 more UC employees will have access to discounted e-bikes. In California cities where traffic is heavy, transit is scarce, and many UC employees have to live far from where they work, this will make campuses more accessible and provide greater mobility to thousands of workers. It’s also a strong demonstration of workers’ power to bargain and win “common good” demands that even benefit workers who haven’t yet formed unions of their own. i
The details of the e-bike discounts (of up to 46%) for each of the vendors can be found at these links: Velotric, Ride1Up, Lectric and Dirwin. Let’s celebrate this vindication of academic workers’ ability to bargain for the common good.
In solidarity,
Vetri Velan
Postdoc Recording Secretary, UAW 5810 LBNL
Physics Division, LBNL
Laura Beebee
UAW 2865 San Diego
Biological Sciences, UC San Diego