Catching Up with Week Three of the UC Strike

you can get through it anyway. All right, So I'm talking today with Matthew, a literally the seven seventh to PhD candidate in the history department. Matthew, would you like to explain a little bit of who you are and what you've been doing with reference to the strike in the last three weeks and maybe before as well. Yes. So I studied Spanish history like you set Empire for seven years, US in Spain for two years during the

COVID pandemic. So there was sort of great in my university of participation between my mind qual of buying exams for the three years I was there, um and then I left and I came back and I go on the campus was was quite different both from COVID and

from the increasingly economic hardships UM. So in the last few year UH we involved in UM targeting UM trying to buy a new contract UM as I'm sure all your listeners are aware by this point, UH riting on for more than a year, in eighteen months in some cases without a successful resolution, and with all I know about bare labor practices on behalf of the UC administration I saw in November fifteen, I believe was today we

walked out on strength. I had signed up several months earlier to be a strike captain for the History Department U s assist too by a sort of the informable committee of five of the younger equals sort of due to the pandemic of a lot of my colleagues and my code board UM and we're not able to go do their research. So they're generally out of the country

right now doing their field research. So we have a really great department of primarily first through third years that are participating UM and and kind of meeting the younger I also ad signed up to be a ticket UH, a ticket leader UM and boiled down to But I've been really occupying myself and saying has been uh being a food captain. So we've been cooking for about a

hundred fifty people at our regul location on campus. Um, we've been getting lots of great donations um food and and fashion even reinvesting that to feed the hungry picketers and strate locations. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I think that's really nice to to bring up. Actually, because that we

were speaking about before the core right. So many people are familiar with and supportive of the concept of unions and unionization and workers right, but I think relatively few people have actually been on strike and seeing what it takes to organize and all the little things you have to take care of. And so did you just step into that food captain role like kind of ad hoc Yeah,

more or less. Night I showed up on the first day and I realized we had been marching around and shouting ourselves for the rotary story night, and I bought a bunch of water, and that's sort of snowballed into cooking. Now we have about eight or night. UM, we rotate shifts and fil planning. We actually used the History of

Parking graduate lounge. But yeah, you know that statut our experience of ticketting is for all the organization and signing up for different asks that need to be more hand hitting the ground and seeing what uh what has needed to sustain that a level as has been a journey, Yeah, I bet, but it seems to have been a lot

to be a successful one. Like everyone is out energetic. Um, there have been some really impressive actions actually, like I don't know if you're part of the village drive shut down, I know what you want to call that yesterday, but did you take part in that? No? I was, I was okay, yeah, yeah, the people who were amazing Yeah yeah. We actually found a faculty spy at the day before who went in and asked what time that was? One game?

Sort of uh, our window. There's been a lot of direct action and it's been very successful the moral perspective and conversational and I'm sure you're a where we uh approached Chancellor Balslaw yesterday the day before and even though obviously we didn't get a promise from him that he would raise our wages or President Drake to raise our wages, Uh, it was you know, very energizing for people who have you been been not able to show up because things

give me great or involved between their people. The direct nation is one of our strong suits at this point. Yeah, yeah,

yeah it is. It is wonderful to see actually, like so many of us spent so much of our lives like studying workers movements and unionization and strikes, and it's cool to see people walking to talk out a little bit, also very import What are the really great things about going on strength with a bunch of the smartest minds in practically every field to get you know, colmatients that are are working on emails and yers and and such. You've got philosophy, who are you know best? You know

quoting working class movements of the past of shape our strategy. Yeah, it's it's a cool thing to see. I remember a long time ago in like and when last time we were on strike, and yeah, it was very cool. One of the professors I was working with with a lit professor and she came and read some stuff and then you know, made people listen to me talking about the ruty for a while, and I enjoyed myself, even if

maybe they didn't. So yeah, I want to talk a little bit as well about like you're in week three now and you said, like you've been maintaining the energy and you're feeding people, which is great. How has obviously, like strikes come with an element of economic hardship and that that's somewhat offset by union strike funds, but it's given the economic procarity of people who are graduate students anyway, it could be really tough. So how has that been

with not quite a descent first yet? Which would that be the first miss paycheck? If people are going to not get paid, yes, uh we are. Most of us could vince that the you see will not have gotten their their house in order by this point. We were working until November fifteen, so at least you get kind

to have a month to day. But because there's no real way for you see to determine exactly which workers are withholding labor and exactly which workers runs right, it seems like the majority of workers will be receiving their first that there there novem pay check UM tomorrow. UH. We have also been received the strikerssistant sprom communion w UM. We're all aware that if we do receive our p check from the university, we will have to return that

money so that we feel future uh strike assistance. Um, and we're very large okay with that, Uh you know that, and so iound out between that actually meek before it makes me ay, they double the strict existence holiday. Okay. So for this month, one way or another, UM, we are all very hopeful that will be able to make ends meet. Uh. Next month is is you know, if the strike does continue, um, sort of which that will

have to cross. I've spoken to a lot of words in the intibute parts who are very concerned about about this, ahx uh, particularly also in the program that I teach for the Making of the Modern World, which recruits heavily from the history of party non student t a s and are not covered by the union and are not uh I whish forts strict fully their labored solidarity, but they're very concerned that uh you know, they're primarily working

as their full time job. Yeah, that's tough. Actually, I've tinned that program to you both as a student and a non student, and it's a good program, but it doesn't pay a to and and you don't save a lot of money living in southern California, so it could be tough. Is there a way to contribute? People want to contribute to those people who are withholding labor and solidarity. Yes, so we are. There is a U a W strike hardship funds have the yeah, yeah, I'll including the notes people.

And there's also av mode that we're echecting donations for which the natural that's on the UCS embassy moment and just overwhelmed with good will with the sizes. Yeah, but you know, depending on how want to strike those is would definitely do something like large partect support anything I think that the public of large and be doing is concerning the compression on the US too. Uh yeah, and yeah,

I hope they continue to do so. And let's talk a little bit about everyone we've talked to so far has been a science or engineering person, and obviously the experience is a little different when you're a historian or rupt so humanities person because you you don't go to a lab, right you don't. Your research is a bit

different and your work is a bit different. So can you explain a little bit about the work the work that one does as a history grad student, that the labor that one does for the university, and and that what the differences in what it's like withholding that labor the differences is that we can be are the vast majority of us that our industry department are A S S. We are t A S. And of the majority of

US teach for either the writing programs for for thestory department. UM. So when we look at what we can contribute to the strike, we are looking at the withholding only a grade, the type of grading that cannot be replaced. Uh. The course I'm between or now there's five or six E A S. There's six hundred and fifty students. I'm responsible for sixty of those PRIs. Each of those students has

a weekly discussion, UH, analysm cious six words. They have a content analysis papers which there's now two of them are missing. Those are things that can that cannot be reverted to choice into writing. It's not a formula. It's not something that be easily uh placed. The are aware that there has been some tension in terms of strategic planning between the A S S and and S are

using in the STEM fields. UH That, on the one hand, in their in their teaching duties, UM, they are very great that their professors will be able to co opt the teaching process UM by made the exams will choice or or something else, and I'm not sure how that would work. I know that that's just not really possible be uh in humanities UM and the other the issue which can I can't really speak to, but I'm sure your other contributors have explained this is we don't work

in labs. Are researching is a much more long term We primarily that research either in uh AN absentia during this warrior with external fellowships or during the summer, whereas SR used and to be working in their labs more

or less constantly. I've heard it said that one of the reasons that SR use are RUDD to be less uh committed to a long term strike is because missing two weeks in a lab since that back price six months in their career, or for the mass majority of humanities uh A, s C S and I talked to, two weeks is is very to be picked up here reading a book in year spare time, and it's not something that we need to be in with buns and burners and to animals. So there seems to be uh

A material conditions divide. I start using sus on one, unanity spam and unanities fada, right, yeah, yeah, there are definitely like two week periods I spent on my research and stuff that I never used in any of my final projects. We could trying to get an archive to open in Spain can often take that long. So I think one thing I'd like to talk about is like the as it stands now, what you're hearing from the

bargaining team and how that's being received. Like I know, there are a lot of different demands, a lot of different things that brought people to strike, right the access needs to COLA, the NFL labor practices, etcetera, etcetera. So what are you hearing on the picket line and how

is it being received? So the news for the first week was on day for the s r U margating team of week to accept a seven percent yearly increase cerviuss he adjustment that would be paid, and I believed to the median uh rent increase in I think that the most expensive cities to help work WHI mean San

Diego and serment system Um. And to be honest, the strike was sold to the vast majority of of the uh N radicalized on fund educated rank and file as being about the fifty four thousand days paying as well as the access needs as well as uh you know, uh hearing the timber employment for some units, um and

and various different things. But there was a lot of consternation in on day four, and I think a lot of us became very radicalized, um when we realized that not only at the uh SRU bargaining team apparently made a concession on day four of what was what was

supposed to be a very powerful strike. Um. But that concession didn't really resolve the issue of skyrocketing inflation and rent process and um, you know, different campuses weighing in the saying beyond Santa Cruz rent went up something like sixty percent in the last year. Seven black increase doesn't

help us at all. Like the University of California, the largest employee and the largest landlord in the state of California, is raising you know, their wages by a black rate, and then all the landlords in that area will continue to raise time of a rent even higher. UM. So a lot of us who were really I wasn't around for the two thousand and twenty Cola Wildcat strike. Um. But in the process of this consternation of the are UBT giving off this uh whole out that spakes to

the media e rent um. A lot of us we think very UM I also a disillusioned but very radicalized and UM start looking into it more uh hu identities. I could say that our pig DeLine where we have a philosophy, literature, UH, history, UM, a number of other

related departments blots very militant. Uh. That was the first kind of moment of uh consciousness of awareness, I think for a lot of us UM and over the last week is the last two weeks is I'm kind of internal um struggle over over tactics and strategy, whether it's feasonable to expect that we can hold out for our aimed the bargaining teams on our campus at least, and there are exceptions, U had generally have generally advanced a sort of moderate line that yeah, been before. A thousand

is high in the sky is great to me. But you know, the way the bargaining works is is you walk or something high and you can get something low. I think we're all, you know, willing to accept that that is how bargaining works. But we have, at least in my big of mine, at least in the humanity has been very uncerted by the tactical decisions to make certain possessions at certain stages without letting the full power of our strike take hold, especially the reholding of grains

which is uting up this week an test week. Um. Another thing which you know most of us have not been on the bargaining team and a lot of us are just kind of checking in, uh to this this very long term process. Pretty late the game. We watched these bargaining processions and see ceres operating definitely does not seem like the bargaining strategy of operating possession or to

get something else there is working at all. Um. The I think made some compromises on accessibility needs up in the hopes that would provoke the u SEE to offer a compresensivey no package last time we gain included the one white mi percent increase for the s R U S proposal and nothing for the A S C S wo. Wow. Yeah, that's that's a that's you're still a long way apart then, so in both in both the grouple of Pola on day four bargaining, I think there's real concerned that the

bargaining team is getting the short edit state. Yeah, that's tough if people don't remember from the last time. By the way, color is the cost of living adjustment that was the initial cause of thelcats. Right, Yes, COLA is possibility adjustment. And there is a lot of uh, really interesting discourse from out kind of what that people are changing.

No Holler contracts data mine COLA as as meaning specifically a yearly percentage increase that is tied to expedient rent exmedi man whereas Barton team has had argued that a seven percent yearly increase qualify as form right, but maybe less in inflation given and certainly less in rent given what rent has done in the last couple of years. And these universities are in very desirable places to live with very high rents. They don't offer subsidut or they

didn't offer significantly subsidized housing, especially to grad students. Often assess you not to all grad students, and so yeah, it becomes very difficult to live even on what would seem like a decent wage, and unless you want to commute a long way something like nine we're and I another story, and political scientists that the vast majority of graduate students who are bold said that they were men burned that they persigned or how they're anyone to meant

most people not too against more like seventy yeah, yeah, yeah, And you can find yourself in that situation working for the university and with the university also as your landlord, and you're paying the senses, which you know it has control over both ends, and it's not doing much to help anyone. Let's talk about withholding grades because that's coming up, right, and that's kind of the next level of escalation I suppose, or like the next hurdle um that's coming up. So

what do is withholding grades look like? Can and can you explain why there's sort of a pedagogical reason that people would be obviously like worried about doing that, all right, so it's this is sort of barrier and what it would do to the university and what it would do to your students as well. Yes, so fundamentally, the withholding grades is the withholding of the alternate finishing product of

our labor um. We can talk about pedagogy and ideology and that, you know, high the Ivory Tower rush as we want, but at the end of the day, when when uh undergraduate at the University of California, pays their fruition, they expect to get grades and transcripts in return. And the reputation that you see that makes it one of the premier plant institutions in the world is that grading is accredited to be reflective of very high quality and

of education. We are saying that we are not providing that ultimate record, um, which any end is is you know, uh what a student with uh demonstrate if they were applying to graduate school. Uh, if they were um B D internship, really anything that uh reflax their college experience,

uh would be hide that great. We are also saying that, you know, in addition to that very brutal kind of explicit uh, the result uh, the pedagogy itself is also a suffer that you know, students are here to learn and and they might complaining it individual class, but by largely you get a lot from their education. And if they're not being actively taught by their teaching assistance, UM, they're suffering. In the MMW program that you and I both up for. The lectures are but they're very you know,

it's it's a very large lecture hall. It's kind of a general just be a vast majority of instruction both in the historical cultural UH content of the person as well as in the UH the writing UH aspect, which is the point of the program to deploy a skilled analytical academic writers. UM, and they are not getting that at all. That's something that's a burden that is carried on under present by the t A s and by holding that and UH, it prevents the students from receiving

equality education essentially. So you're the're hoping that, particularly in the humanities where our labory is completely irreplaceable, UM, that will pressure of the university. Now we have been hearing that UM. Some universities have been given laterally extending the deadline for final bids. I believe that UH either Riverside or Irvine and just a message about this kind of extended January. There's a lot of sort of confusion about what that would entail it. You know, the strike is over,

we all go back. We then have to facto. UM. It seems like some faculty have either in solidarity or in UH desperation, tided to to final exam change the format of those exams. UM. We are I think that route the most afraid that the university will UH grant some sort of or it doesn't how everybody gets passd uh. If it would, it would theory weaken the union's power, but it would also weaken the universities to required those rates to uh progress in their college education in their life.

It would be a huge low for them to receive not a letter grade. Um yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be a massive step for the university to take in undermining their own status and the well being of their students. Right Like if you have a required class or required grade in a certain class to progress to graduate school or to breas to a vocational degree, then um, yeah, that that would make it. They could have long term implications for those students, right yeah, yeah, that would be

a big step for them. So will I suppose Yeah, that's interesting if they extend it, what are you are required to go back and redo? That's a huge amount of labor that you would then be doing in a very compact amount of time to grade three MW assignments is an endurance challenge grade to normally due in mid December? Is that still the case UCSD? Right now? This is

this is weekend. Yeah, the clock is taking So how does the how does this strike look if you go past week ten right if you go, not just in terms of withholding grades, but obviously campus is very different when the undergrads aren't there. They don't think really we have discussions about whether or not Ward did it for the long we are I think at the moment hedging our bets on the next two weeks being in some

ways decisive. There is a fashion uh actually that fel that once finals are are over, are power dramatically weakens. I'm certainly give the UC decided to uh by us the rating for this, It seemed like that would be a happnhausis. I'm not convinced that they would do that. Um In I do the longer that we wouldhold those rates. Um they look, you have the leverage. I don't think the US will just throw up their hands, you know, we don finally say oh well it's right off, see

you next quarter. Yeah. Yeah, I think they have been back trying to hold you out. I'd love to know, like to close out what you've learned through the the three in a bit weeks you've been on strike, and what you think like people should take from this, Like it's an unprecedented era for workers organization in the last thirty years. We've seen more strikes in last few years and we have in decades. So what can people learn

from the UC experience? Yes, absolutely, UM. One of the things that I have learned which is very salient in my mind. UM, as somebody who started organizing about three or four months before the strike, I was approached to

uh be a strength apton and the park. Later, I went to various trainings, I went sat in on this organizing meetings, UM, and the ship we were given kind of before the strike began was that we had an incredible amount of power the strike gratification vote where uh we uh more than three quarters of the graduate students voted overwhelmingly in the ninety eight percentile to strike. We all went in with a very powerful sense of the historic nature of the strike and our our bargaining power

in our solidarity. UM. That seems to be treated by any of the union leadership as a finite resource, as something that we want of us full to trigger. On sent the workers out hope, growers for resolution, and if we didn't get it, then UM worked to wrap it up as quickly as we can. I'm sure that I'm giving them short shrift, and that this is probably ultimately an unbear analysis very much the percentage only that that you know this isn't sustainable, that we are reaching our

peak power. UM, that now is the time to start uh kind of pivoting to making these concessions. And we're all I'm saying that you know this. The organizing doesn't stop when you walk out. The organizing begins when you

walk out. And for for people like me, who you know at some knowledge I I've experienced in organizing, I've been occupied whom I consider myself very well educated radical, but just at the fact of getting on the picket line, experiencing and talking to my bellow workers across campuses, across picket mines has been energizing and meadicalizing all upon its own. I don't think that the union leadership, we mean I knew what to do with that account of language, it

the bushes where efficient, their horses or whatever. I that a lot of school, with the our campus leadership, ought to have done a better job with the UH, the day to day energizing. UH. One issue that UH you know at camp lame specifically on a specific harbing unit or UH even the U U A W T suspi um, but it's a hunter wal comes from above is at um.

If you do not picket, you do not actively sign up or ticket shifts that in this long round, you do not give strength and um And for a lot of us who have accessibility needs or are are not closed to campus, or are withholding their labor and active in the strike in other ways, they feel like there's not really a place for them um and and they're doing equally crucial work. Yess, it's good to have people

picketing and on that visibility. Ultimately, if there were two people hitting and everybody else was withholding their labor, we would still win the strength UM. So there seems to be a overwhelming emphasis on the visible single of our power and our solidarity. And the concession that was made in day four was explained by a dwindling uh amount of people who were showing up for pickets, you know, from day one to two increation before UM and a lot of us tried to push that on that. Yes,

you know, it's it's hard to sustain that physical press. Yeah, but we should be also working to bolster and encourage and harness the power of those workers Benny every day. But nevertheless doing apprecial labor stat Yeah, is this did a remote picking option to that account? Yes, yes, there is, uh you know, in any in any organization by uh you know, uh massive workers. There's the growing pains and nariations in the first in the first week of I

am dueling remote coordinators with separate lists. The resolved and they seem to have been resolved by now the same thing with some delays in process thing strike pay account disbursements. Again, they're there's no shade in this doing this, but for but for people who for uh you know, sort of on events or I really important this heck, that was a real big stressor for them, their their willingness to kind of be out there. Really. Yeah, that totally makes sense.

And yeah, it's it's already a stressful time. But like you said, these things will have people will learn in the process. Right, Like it's new for so many people.

It's unprecedented to have like ten percent of the graduate students in the country with holding their labor, and so like, they will of course be growing painted And I think often when we look at strikes, like both you and me as historians and as consumers of the news, we like we see one photo of a bunch of people like in hives standing around a brazier, and then three

weeks later we read another story about a resolution contract. Right, and in fact, what makes a strike powerful is feeding people and being showing up and looking out for one another. So like that's what we're trying to document. Thanks so much, Matt, And I wonder where people can find if you'd like to give your own social media or where people can find strike updates from the u S and from UC

San Diego, anything like that you want to plug. Yes, I'm partisan in this, but I would highly recommend not getting strike updates from the u C San Diego. So yeah from the campus, not from the university here. So where you see now or yeah, I think it's I think it's on the ground, Yeah, dealing documents too much. Great place on Twitter has also been very all of its current yeah to date information. Can you tell us to Venmo where people can like hell in the true

Spanish historian fashion feed everyone? Have you got a giant out there? Are you? Like with the spade? So I will clarify this is a this is a uneficial Yeah, this is not the U A WU worldwide MMO, but the particulars on the US camps organizing meetings. The problem lines is at UCSD dash strikes. Nice yeah, easy to remember. Hopefully you get some donations. Thanks, I'm sure time, Matt, I appreciate it. It could happen here as a production

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