Dearest UAW 2865 union siblings and fellow graduate students,

We are asking you to sign the following petition to support us graduate student workers at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) who are on a wildcat strike. As of December 18, we began withholding final grades for the fall quarter from the University until our demand for a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) is met. We are demanding an additional $1,412 a month, for all UCSC graduate students regardless of employment or citizenship status, to bring us out of rent burden. Santa Cruz, if you are unaware, is often ranked one of the least affordable cities in the United States. NPR recently reported on living conditions in Santa Cruz and the significance of this strike (https://tinyurl.com/UCSCstrikeNPR)!

The balance of power is clear: over 400 TAs are withholding their grades with massive undergraduate support. Professors have agreed not to cross the digital picket line by refusing to enter grades on behalf of strikers. The University knows that this isn’t going away without addressing our cost of living and their only play is to hide behind procedure and vague assertions about the law. Their claim is that they cannot negotiate with the elected union leadership of our campus because we are not really the union. They are pretending that UAW 2865 is somehow the reason that management cannot pay us more. But we know how absurd this is.  We know that UAW 2865 supports all graduate students in their fight for better living and working conditions.  These are stalling tactics to avoid having to sit down with us and negotiate.  

We need our union siblings to call bullshit on the boss. By signing this petition, you are adding your voice to that of grads around the state who demand that UCSC meet with the Santa Cruz Unit and who reject the University’s divisive and union-busting rhetoric that UAW 2865 could possibly be an obstacle to workers getting paid a living wage. We are ALL the Union.

Learn more about the UCSC wildcat strike: www.payusmoreucsc.com, @payusmoreucsc on instagram and twitter, and “UC Student Workers UAW 2865 Santa Cruz” on Facebook