After fired graduate students gave statements at a March 2 press conference, supporters chanted and rejoined the picket. Photo by Maria Cordova/City on a Hill Press

The United Auto Workers (UAW) 2865, the union representing graduate students across the UC, filed Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges against the UC on Feb. 27 and on March 2. The charges stem from the UC Santa Cruz administration’s illegal attempted  bargaining with university-funded student councils to bypass the collective bargaining contract and illegal use of a student conduct code (instead of the discipline process in the collective bargaining contract) and illegal firing of wildcat strikers at UCSC. The union has announced a statewide membership vote in early  April to authorize an Unfair Labor Practice Strike. See story at

As COLA movement gains UC-wide traction, UAW 2865 will hold Unfair Labor Practice Strike Authorization Vote

The wildcat strike began at UCSC and is now spreading to other UC campuses statewide, including UCSD. The strike began to demand a cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) to resolve the crisis of affordable housing for graduate students employed as teaching and research assistants. UC pays them poverty wages. The strike has spread both in solidarity with fired strikers at UCSC and to make the demand for a COLA a statewide demand in the UC. For more on this story, see

UCSC Fires At Least 74 Graduate Student Employees

New Indicator has been tracking reports from campus press across the UC system. Vital background and updates material about this wildcat movement is available at payusmoreucsc.com

  As our contribution to supporting and spreading the strike, we have added a new section on UC Campus Press to the collection of links on our Resources page.

Resources

The new section on UC Campus Press is also a needed upgrade to our efforts to make it easier for people to find the information we all need.

We invite you to browse the most current reports at UC campuses across the state. And we welcome suggestions from our readers about new resources links to add to the page.