Unions are known for fighting for higher wages and working conditions. But academic employees at the University of California system gave their union permission Wednesday to call for a strike over something entirely different: free speech.
The union, UAW 4811, represents about 48,000 graduate students and other academic staff at 10 campuses of the University of California and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The members, outraged by the university system's handling of campus protests, urged their union to address grievances beyond the bread-and-butter issues of collective bargaining to include concerns about protesting and speaking out their workplace.
The vote on the strike permit, which was passed with 79 percent support, comes two weeks after dozens of counter-protesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles for hours without police intervention and without arrests. Officers in riot gear demolished the encampment the next day and arrested more than 200 people.
The vote does not guarantee a strike, but gives the board of the local union, which is part of the United Auto Workers, the ability to call a strike at any time. Eight of the University of California's 10 campuses have one month of classes left before summer begins.
The Union said it had decided to vote because the University of California unilaterally and unlawfully changed its policies regarding free speech, discriminated against pro-Palestinian speech, and created an unsafe work environment by, among other things, allowing attacks on protesters.
“People on the ground are extremely agitated due to the university's unlawful behavior surrounding the protests on campus,” said Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 4811. “We ask the university to de-escalate the situation and do so by engage in good faith with protesters on campus.”
The University of California president's office said in a statement before the approval vote that a strike would “set a dangerous precedent that would introduce non-labor issues into employment contracts.”
There are still several active encampments on the University of California campuses, including UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis. On Tuesday, protesters at UC Berkeley began dismantling their camp after reaching an agreement with university officials.
In a letter to protesters Tuesday, Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said the university divestment talks would begin of certain companies and that she planned to publicly support “the efforts to achieve an immediate and permanent ceasefire” by the end of the month. But she said divesting companies that do business with or in Israel is not within her purview.
After packing up their tents, some protesters from Berkeley traveled to UC Merced on Wednesday to attend a meeting held by the University of California Board of Governors. More than a hundred people signed up to comment publicly, and almost everyone who spoke about the protests criticized the way university officials handled them.
The strike vote allows for a so-called “stand-up” strike, a tactic that used to be the case first started working for the United Auto Workers last year during contract negotiations with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis. Rather than calling on all members to strike at once, this move gives the local union's board of directors the opportunity to concentrate strikes on certain campuses or among certain groups of employees to gain more influence.
Mr. Jaime, the president of UAW 4811, said the union would use the tactic of “rewarding campuses that are making progress” and possibly calling strikes against those that don't. He added that the union would announce the strikes “only at the last minute” to maximize chaos and confusion for the employer.
Tobias Higbie, a professor of history and labor studies at UCLA, said that while striking for freedom of speech was unusual, it was not unheard of. The academic workers union is also largely made up of young people, who even in the recent past have been much more receptive to organized labor than young people, he said.
“It points out that generational changes are not only impacting workplaces, but also trade unions,” Mr Higbie said. “Young members will increasingly make these kinds of demands on their unions in the future over the next few years, and so I think it's probably a harbinger of things to come.”
Jill Cowan reporting contributed.