UC Service Workers Announce STRIKE on June 4th and 5th

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paul Ortiz
Date: Fri, May 23, 2008 at 11:22 PM
Subject: Re: UC AFSCME Strike for June 4 and 5
To: portiz [at] ucsc.edu


Dear Colleagues,

Many of you recently joined me for a night celebrating our seven years together on campus. It was so very humbling and inspirational--thank you for your support and solidarity! I'm very sad to be leaving UCSC. However, I am not gone yet, and am asking you once again for a favor...Thanks for your indulgence as always...

I'm just returning from a press conference where UCSC campus service workers, many of whom are first-generation immigrants, announced that their union had voted overwhelmingly to go out on strike on Wednesday, June 4, and Thursday June 5. (The vote was 97.5% in favor of a strike.)

These staff are members of our local AFSCME union. They include dining service workers, custodians, and maintenance employees. They are the hardest-working people on this campus. They hail from many of the great nations of this earth, they speak different languages, they all have families. Without their labor this campus cannot run. The union ran a creative, ten-month campaign designed to avoid a strike. Its members are the lowest-paid workers in the UC system and they simply cannot afford to lose even a day's wages. Unfortunately however, UC failed to engage in serious negotiations.

I am ashamed at the University of California's racist and paternalist attitude towards these workers at the bargaining table--which I have witnessed firsthand. AFSCME is only asking that the service workers should be paid an equitable, living wage. They are not asking to get rich. In contrast, the University of California seems to specialize lately in giving extra handouts to its high-priced executives. This callous behavior led the Honorable Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) to recently refer to UC's behavior as "nauseating." In providing extra perks to executives while slighting workers the University of California further risks our public reputation and working relationship with the California State Legislature.

For all of these reasons, I am urging you to honor the AFSCME picket lines on June 4 and June 5. There are many options regarding the holding of class/office hours that we staff and faculty may take on these days. Very soon, AFSCME will issue a news release detailing some of these options. I am attaching some web links to further details and resources to study this situation.

Of course, it would be great if UCSC faculty and staff organized our own educational response to this turn of events....

With Great Respect,
Paul Ortiz

*******

AFSCME Site:
http://www.afscme3299.org/index.php

University of California News Service
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/17895

Dear UC Colleagues,

You should be aware that our sister UC union, ASCME, will almost certainly be on strike on all UC campuses on June 4 and 5, 2008. There will likely be picket lines at all UC facilities and their entrances. The UC-AFT representing lecturers and librarians at UC strongly supports our sisters and brothers in AFSCME and we hope that all our members will support the AFSCME action within the limits provided by our own contract (MOU).

Under Unit 18 and 17 MOUs, Lecturers and Librarians are not allowed to "withhold their labor" in sympathy with AFSCME workers. You may not simply refuse to show up at work unless you honestly feel that crossing the picket line would put you at physical risk for your personal safety. Don't misread this provision as a purely subjective issue. Should you choose this option, you might well be forced to defend it in court and capricious use of this "excuse" might put your job in jeopardy.

However, you should also be aware of the following:

1) Nothing in our MOU or any other rules at UC prohibit you from exercising your First Amendment rights to speak out and/or demonstrate your support for AFSCME workers. If it does not conflict with your work obligations, you have every right to walk on a picket line, write leaflets, speak out to your colleagues and/or students about your views on labor relations at UC in general or with respect to AFSCME in particular. You can go to the picket line or do other strike support work on your breaks or when you are not teaching. You can wear buttons or tee shirts or express your views in a variety of media.

2) You may not cancel your classes, or duty on Library desks, etc. on the 4th and 5th (unless, of course, you go to class and no one shows up). As an "instructor of record" for your class, you have the right and the responsibility to decide about the best way to deliver instruction to your students. You may decide, for example, that the picket lines will make it difficult for your students to get to class (at UCSC for example, the buses will almost certainly not be running up to campus from the entrances), and, therefore, you might decide to move your classes off campus.

At UCSC, Several off-campus meeting places have been arranged in Santa Cruz and UCSC lecturers could contact me if you need information about them. You could also simply meet at the entrance of campus on the other side of the picket line. The weather will probably be good and this might be a good solution for many classes. (Unless your course is about labor issues, I would not suggest that you require your students to meet on the picket line).

3) What you may not do under your MOU is to urge other faculty or staff to withhold their labor or withhold your own. You simply must do the best you can to meet your teaching or work obligations. For example, Office hours at the end of the quarter are particularly important, and I think that students will have a very hard time getting to my office, so I intend to hold office hours at the entrance of campus and to let as many students as possible know that they will be able to find me there.

4) You can expect various emails and missives from the Administration making a variety of threats if you don't meet your class in its regular location and time. They may suggest that there are "liability issues" if you don't meet in a regular classroom. As long as you exercise reasonable care in where your class meets (not in the middle of a freeway please!), and as long as you are doing your best to deliver instruction to your students under the difficult conditions that a strike presents, you will not be liable for anything that you would not be liable for in teaching a class in your normal classroom. As long as you make a reasonable attempt to meet your class, you cannot be fired or disciplined in any way. If you think you are receiving any threats about your responsibilities during the strike that are not being received by everyone else in your Division, please let your UC-AFT Field Representative or a local officer know about it.

5) Please follow the above guidelines. If you do try to withhold your labor, please know that the UC-AFT does not encourage it (we face substantial fines if we do), and you are putting yourself at risk, since your contract does not protect sympathy strikes.

Within these guidelines, please do everything you can to support our sisters and brothers in AFSCME. Below, please see some more information about why AFSCME is going on strike. Feel free to share this information with your colleagues, students, and members of the community. We encourage you to do so.

Mike Rotkin
Statewide Vice President for Organizing
UC-AFT

The strike has been called off.