A strike by 48,000 university employees at the University of California has reached a critical juncture as the battle enters its third week today. Teaching Assistants, Lecturers, Researchers and Other Workers Double the Teaching Assistant’s Salary and Reduce Cost of Living (COLA) to Combat Rampant Inflation in One of the Most Expensive States in the Nation We are demanding a significant wage increase, including the protection of
But the strike is in grave danger. This is not due to lack of public support. On the contrary, the striker’s call for wage increases to combat inflation has gained broad support from workers and students on and off campus.
This is exactly what Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Democrats and the UAW “Labor Lieutenant” and the California Federation of Labor Bureaucrats are so desperate to shut it down. The reason is.
Last week, UAW negotiators announced that they would drop the demands of COLA, which was at the center of the strike. This sparked a storm of opposition from the strikers, who chanted the slogan “No cola, no contract!”
This opposition is not what UC administrators, state Democrats and union bureaucrats say is affordable, but through the establishment of a general strike committee to fight for what workers need, a conscious political and organizational form. At the same time, this strike committee is mobilizing full-time faculty, UC medical center workers, nurses, educators, railroad and dock workers to prepare for joint action to win this decisive struggle. We must reach out to a wider segment of the working class, including
To tackle this battle, it’s important to know exactly who UC workers are fighting.
The University of California is overseen by the UC Board of Trustees. A majority of his 28-member board, including his two non-voting members, were directly appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his predecessors (including Democrat Jerry Brown).
The Board of Trustees is a roster of Democratic, state, corporate and financial elites. Regents do not receive a salary, but it is a lucrative position for those who have the connections and know-how to profit from it. Their subordinates, his UC president and the presidents of each of his 10 campuses, are being paid a salary of $400,000 to $850,000, bolstering austerity regimes. This is in line with corporate tax cuts and other giveaways that both big companies have been doing for decades.
A brief profile of some of the board members shows this.
Richard ReeveThe current chairman of the board is a businessman with a long history in charter schools, consultancies, military and intelligence agencies. He was an executive at his US Public Technologies, which was acquired by defense contractor Lockheed Martin in 1999. In 2018, he was nominated by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.
Gareth ElliottThe current Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees was previously Chief Policy Officer for State Senator Alex Padilla (Democrat) and Chief Policy Officer and Deputy Chief of Staff for Senate Speaker Pro Tempore Don Perata (Democrat). He then became a partner at Sacramento Advocates, Inc., a lobbying firm based in California. He was also appointed by Brown and has been regent since 2015.
Maria AngianoAfter serving as Vice President of Planning and Budget at the University of California, Riverside, he managed an $800 million budget and oversaw campus-wide financial planning and capital asset strategy before becoming Vice President of Learning Enterprise at Arizona State University. She is also a board member of the KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Foundation. The foundation is ostensibly “non-profit” but still a lucrative national charter school system, serving as senior advisor to anti-public education bills and Melinda Gates. Foundation. Since 2017 she has been a Regent at UC and previously at Barclays where she held “treasurer roles” at Capital and Deloitte.
Anthony Rendon The current Speaker of the California State Legislature, his political career has been funded by donations from energy companies (primarily Pacific Gas and Electric Co). They sidestepped campaign funding limits by donating more than $500,000 of hers to charities run by his wife. His legislative accomplishments include repealing California’s Single Payer Healthcare Act after it was passed by the state Senate in 2017. He is an “ex officio” regent, meaning that his role in the state government automatically makes him a regent.
Ana MatosantosAppointed by Governor Newsom in July 2022, he served as Director of the California Department of Treasury in both the Brown and Schwarzenegger administrations and is responsible for cutting billions of dollars in public spending after the 2008 financial crisis. Supervised. She was also appointed by President Obama to serve as a member of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Control and Economic Stabilization Commission. The Puerto Rico Oversight, Control and Economic Stabilization Commission is imposing brutal austerity and privatization on US-controlled territory.
Howard “Peter” Guber Current CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group and former CEO of Sony Entertainment, Columbia Pictures and Polygram Entertainment. Guber, who reportedly has a net worth of just under $1 billion, is also a co-owner of the Golden State Warriors basketball team and his Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.
The union is also directly represented on the board of directors. John PerezA cousin of former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and another former Democratic chairman of the state legislature, he served as political advisor to the United Food Commercial Workers Union for 7 years before becoming political director of the California Labor Federation. His bio on the Regents site states that while he was a speaker,[d] Structural deficits that have left California’s budget imbalanced for more than a decade have led to a flurry of balanced and timely budgets that have resulted in an across-the-board upgrade in California’s credit rating. I succeeded. In 2014, he became regent.
This is a gang of public school privatizers against millionaire executives, professional budget cutters, and UC workers. Primarily, they are Democrats who control every level of state government.
COLA has been a core demand for UC staff since UC Santa Cruz academic staff organized a wildcat strike in 2019 that quickly spread to other campuses. In response to the strike, Janet Napolitano (then UC president and director of Homeland Security under President Obama) mobilized police to brutalize demonstrators and threatened to deport international students. His current UC administration is again intimidating the striking international students.
Behind the Democratic Party’s “progressive” pretenses and endless propaganda of racist politics, which recently erupted in the Los Angeles City Council scandal, lies a ruthless defense of capitalism and the corporate and financial establishments. The result of decades of pro-business policies is evidenced by the fact that California, the “bluest state,” is home to the largest homeless population, as well as her over 180 millionaires. I’m here.
Instead of fighting the Democrats, the UAW bureaucracy promotes them. Union officials falsely claim that Senator Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Katie Porter are allies of the strike, with Democrats dominating every aspect of California politics. I hid the fact that
From the perspective of the corporate and Democratic establishments, and servants of the UAW and CFL bureaucracy, the UC Stryker victory is a dangerous blow to bipartisan demands that the working class pay for the economic crisis and war. will be A success like this could unleash an uncontrollable wave of struggle, including 120,000 railroad and 22,000 West Coast dockworkers whose strikes have been blocked for months by unions and the Biden administration, they said. I am afraid.
But this is exactly what it takes to defeat the corporate and political forces that oppose the UC Stryker’s legitimate demands. Achievement or failure is determined only by struggle.
As Mack Trucks worker and socialist UAW presidential candidate Will Lehman said, UC workers took the lead in the struggle into their own hands to prevent another sale by the UAW institution. must take.
No time to lose. On every campus, workers elect representatives on strike committees to set their own non-negotiable demands, such as wage increases to curb inflation and drastic cuts in her COLA, housing, transportation, health care, and childcare. must create a list of cost. Any contract that does not contain these basic requirements must be opposed.
At the same time, this committee will reach out to railroad, dock, oil refinery, manufacturing workers, nurses, educators, and other workers to join forces to win common demonstrations, strikes, and UC strikes. Other actions should be prepared, industrial and political counters should be prepared. – An attack on capitalism and the social inequalities it creates, dictatorships and wars.
