On this special episode I talk with Tony and Anney two UCSC students who have been part organizing on campus strikes that lead to the firing of over eighty working grad students. Please check out these links to help support here are the links: more info and updates: payusmoreucsc.com ucsc main solidarity fund https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-fund-for-striking-workers-at-ucsc one set up specifically for grads affected in fem studies https://www.gofundme.com/f/feministcola-fund twitter: @payusmoreucsc instagram: @payusmoreucsc and @cola4all
All right, so I'm Tony Boswell and this is a special episode of Minion Death Cult.
I'm doing a little bit of an interview with a couple comrades, Annie and Tony, both UCSC students, grad students who are really part of the struggle and really out here organizing and trying to make a difference and actually doing the work.
So I kind of want to get them out here to talk and Let's kind of catch up what's going on.
As some of you know, the UC system is really not supporting their grad students, especially their working grad students, basically using this as a form of free labor and taking advantage of the whole system.
And you know, although they're grad students, y'all need to eat.
So I'm gonna, you know, this is, Kind of just a format.
Like, I just kind of want people to hear about this because I'm finding that a lot of people know what's going on.
And myself included, I'm a little bit, you know, in the dark.
I just kind of see your post and see what's going on through the lens, through your lens.
And that's kind of more important than anything I'm going to read on any type of like, I'm actually not seeing a lot of coverage of it, which is really upsetting.
So go ahead and introduce yourselves and we'll jump right in.
Hey, I'm Tony.
I'm a grad student at UCSC.
I'm a PhD candidate in literature.
I'm Annie.
I am actually an undergraduate in the Critical and Race and Ethnic Studies program at UCSC.
We've had Annie on before.
Annie's a friend of ours and we love her so much.
And so I'm so happy that Annie, you can join us and bring Tony along.
So yeah, so from what I've been seeing, Uh, there was a general, there was a grading strike, correct?
And, um, that's kind of, uh, unfolded in some, some pretty fucked up stuff.
Uh, so if you could kind of catch us up, that'd be great.
Yeah, exactly, Tony.
So we've been on a grading strike at Santa Cruz since December 10th of last year.
And then this has escalated into a full teaching strike this year.
So grad students at UCSC, we are demanding a cost of living adjustment that would bring us out of rent burden.
So rent burden is paying 30% of your wages in rent.
Most graduate students, me included, pay way over this.
We pay 50, 60, 70% of our wages and rent.
So we started articulating this demand early in the school year from around September.
We had some rallies, we had some protests.
We heard very little from the administration except Threats related to certain actions.
And this kind of... There was a feature of this that early on, this was organized through the... Through organizers with the union, which is something I can talk a little more about later, because this is a wildcat strike.
It's not a strike sanctioned by our union.
And also through... So it was through union organizers and also through the Graduate Student Association.
But when this was called, it was on an email thread by rank-and-file members who were really just desperately frustrated about the lack of any sort of response from the administration, the kind of Like, lack of awareness about our situation, the fact that there had been just like years and years of trying to push cost of living as a problem.
Santa Cruz, regularly rated as like one of the least affordable housing markets, often the least affordable place to live in the country because the wages are so low and the rents are so high.
Yeah.
So yeah, so this came
Kind of organically on this email chain, a sort of reply all to the Chancellor, which escalated into these suggestions that we go on a grading strike, and I think organisers, I was organising with the union, although just to say kind of, we are in a union contract that you have at every,
That spans the whole of the UC system, all 10 campuses.
But Santa Cruz voted by 83% to not ratify this contract that was decided in 2018.
So back then, I think the union felt it didn't have a lot of power.
Santa Cruz was a little disillusioned with Statewide, and was really feeling the pressures of the cost of living.
TAs get paid the same at every campus, including in places where it's much cheaper to live, like Merced and Riverside.
So yeah, so we voted to go on a Wildcat grading strike, unprotected by our union.
This kind of went into effect on, I think the 17th of December was when grades were due.
We had hundreds of graduate students withholding final grades for the full quarter.
We formed all kinds of, like, we had to To sort of very quickly do all sorts of organization, because the organizers had to catch up with the rank-and-file members.
We had to put out a poll because people were ready to go, and we saw that we had a lot more support for a grading strike than we initially thought, so we did that.
We realised that we had to go on strike, we set up a website, we set up all sorts of committees for things like undergraduate impact, for all of these different aspects of what a grading strike would look like, and then that continued over the break.
Back, when we came back in the winter quarter, we got a kind of offer framed as an announcement from the Chancellor, which was saying that we would get a $2,500 needs-based housing fellowship.
$2,500 a year, this is.
$2,500 needs based housing fellowship.
$2,500 a year this is, which is a fraction of what we were asking for.
So this was also coupled with threats of retaliation, with threats of firings and TAs who were incensed by this, We didn't take it up as an offer because it wasn't put in the context of negotiations.
It was just presented as an announcement of two new programs, the $2,500 thing, that also that we would have five years of funding.
PhD programs, normative time is five years, but typically PhD students take much longer than this.
So this was also seen as inadequate because this is basically just the minimum that we need to live here.
We need to be funded for the time that we're enrolled in these programs.
So So, kind of frustrated by this statement, then grads called more General Assemblies, decided to escalate to a full teaching strike, and then... So, we're in the third... Sorry, we're going into the fourth week of that.
Last week...
We were, first we were threatened to be fired, we had a doomsday, then we received a clarification of the notice telling us that there was a hard deadline telling us that this deadline actually didn't count until the next week.
Wow, wow.
So we basically got an extension, but framed as a clarification.
And yeah, so then this Friday, just gone, so two days ago, many of us were fired, including me.
It said, was it 80 personnel, right?
were fired.
80 grad students were fired?
It's kind of hard to tell.
So the email that we got told us that we had 54 who were fired, we know that it was more than this.
And also people who did submit grades were fired.
Wow!
People who didn't submit grades were not fired.
So people have been fired in these entirely haphazard ways.
International students like me have been fired, which has really dangerous consequences for our residency, because you have to remain enrolled for your visa status.
Part of this is to do with working.
to do with working.
So we remain on strike.
We will have voted to withhold winter grades as well, which are coming up in a few weeks.
And we're, We're in the process of forming many different forms of mutual aid for graduate students who will be fired.
We have a strike fund that has got more than $200,000 in it, but we need to keep building more and more because... Yeah, beautiful.
Yeah, we're covering people's tuition and people's living costs for next quarter, and we're trying to find out different jobs that we can help circulate between us.
To keep people around so we can keep organising.
At the same time, UC Santa Barbara announced last week that they're going on a full strike, so that started Thursday.
And UC Davis announced a grading strike that they are starting working on that will go into effect at the end of this quarter.
The other UCs are not far behind.
There's been lots of solidarity actions, rallies, things like this.
So there's lots of pressure from all sorts of different angles on the university to give in to the demand and to reinstate the fired TAs.
Now one of the reasons why I think that a lot of people aren't paying much attention to this is because I don't think they understand the imperative role that Student teachers and grad students and TAs play in the academic systems and you're not just students who are, you know, you're not just like your average college student, that you're not so easily, like how huge of a role you play.
Can you kind of tell me about a bit, for those of us who like, you know, maybe didn't go to college or are not around academia at all, What is the role of somebody like you, like a TA, because you're straight teaching classes, you know, you're straight, you know, the grading you're doing is very important.
What kind of an impact do we hope to make from a strike?
How important is the role that you play?
Yeah, so I think we've shown because the grading strike has been so huge that it's integral to the university's So we grade all the papers, we hold sections, so instructors of record hold the lectures, and then graduate student TAs typically hold sections for classes.
We hold office hours for students.
You know, it's 20 hours a week of work, but often the labor of this will sort of extend way over this.
And then also included in this is graduate student instructors who are grad students who are teaching their own classes.
So many of these are also on strike.
So these are lecturing and also holding sections and grading as well.
Have they gone as far as to like, I mean, Well, this is very recent, so I don't know.
It's Sunday.
Are there going to be other people filling in these slots?
Are they bringing in scabs?
Is that, like, gonna be happening?
Or does it look like that's gonna be happening?
Or are they just gonna, you know, pile the brunt of this onto the professors, or just, like, really fuck over all the students who are waiting to go to class?
Yes.
Yeah, yes, yes being the answer, basically.
Everyone's getting fucked over.
Yeah, everyone's getting fucked over and really, you know, I've been in these meetings and sort of, yeah, large town halls with the administration and they don't know what's going to happen.
I think they thought that we were going to fold.
So, I mean, one thing that's happened is there's been people who did submit grades or who weren't involved in the grading strike at all.
There have been pledges circulated around to refuse TA shifts There's been hard pledges to refuse TA-ships from certain departments in the event of people getting fired.
And secondly, sort of softer TA-ships, sorry, softer pledges that have gone a lot around the sciences particularly, saying that they would not take up positions that have been opened from people who've been fired.
And this has got like, almost 600 people have signed these pledges, so we have like, Widespread.
Yeah, this is really widespread.
Yeah, this is this is really interesting to watch because it's really we're seeing in live, you know, in real time, the importance of solidarity and support and actually sticking with each other.
And also what how different this would look if there was a union.
I know you said you had you're having some like assistance and some like direction from unions.
What unions are you working with?
Well, so the grad students who are working as TAs and grad student instructors and readers and also tutors, this also includes undergrads as well, are represented by the local branch of the United Auto Workers, UAW, UAW 2865.
So we have a union, we have a union contract, but we would bargain next in 2022.
Really, you know, the message we had from graduate students is that that is too late to, you know, we need a cost of living adjustment right now.
We don't, people are living in their cars.
People are taking up second and third jobs.
People are living like way out of town and commuting for hours to get here.
Um, supposed to be able to afford rent.
Um, you know, people like grad students really like we're kind of, You know, not really wanting to be taking out more loans, like people already have student loans they took out as undergraduates, but people are taking out loans to go through grad school.
So I think, like, the deal with the union is we have a union who can, you know, fight for, kind of, they can fight grievances in the workplace.
Our statewide union is, I think, more conservative than our campus membership and leadership is.
So part of this pressure is to change what the statewide union looks like, to make it more militant.
And this is really working, we're really pushing the union.
So the union then demanded that the University of California go into bargaining again, reopen the contract.
Kind of as a result of the pressure that we have from from UCSC Yeah, so we're really just hoping to make this a union that's more powerful for members across the state That's awesome.
I really want to see that.
I have been seeing It's kind of cool.
California is such a big state.
It is really cool seeing support all the way from like Berkeley down to San Diego and
Having friends, I have some comrades all across those boards, and it's really good to see all this happening, like I said, in real time, and I'm really hoping to see a change for you and for the future of all the UC grad students, because I think that they paint this picture, California paints this picture of how wonderful and beautiful the UC system is, which, yes, it has a lot of really great things about it,
But when it comes down to it, stuff like this is happening.
Like you said, the biggest difference is things like, there's no reason that you should be getting paid in Santa Cruz the same amount that someone like, you know, like I said, Emerson or something like that would be getting paid.
And like, it's criminal that we have people who were teachers, at the end of the day, are teachers living in their cars, is really, really upsetting.
Um, you're in such a weird, isolated little area that's like a beautiful place.
But, um, my only memory of Santa Cruz is I was on a road trip with somebody who I thought I was dating until we got to Santa Cruz.
And, um, she was like, cool.
So I'll meet you in San Francisco in two days.
And I was like, what?
This is your car.
I don't know how I'm going to get there.
And I had to figure out how to get from public transit, um, from Santa Cruz to San Francisco.
And it was kind of an eye-opener of how isolated that little community is.
And I couldn't imagine having to live out of town there and then commuting to the campus.
That's wild.
It's disgusting.
And I'm really happy that you're shining a light for this.
What can we do?
Specifically, what can other students do?
And then also, what can non-students who are just people who want to support this movement, what can they do to help out?
Yeah, so I think really important right now is GoFundMe.
If you just type in GoFundMe UCSC, it's called Support Fund for Striking Workers at UCSC, and we really need the money because we all got fired.
So that's one thing.
Yeah.
So that's one thing first.
Kind of second, like for students at different institutions, we've been seeing lots of solidarity coming in from across the state, across the country, across the world.
We've been seeing, we've got solidarity statements from, yeah, all over the world.
And it really is like a massive pick-me-up.
Is that the right word?
Yes.
- Yes. - And it just like, yeah, it puts added pressure on the institution.
So we have a website payosmoreucsc.com and there's a series of statements of support.
If you're interested in writing a solidarity statement, you can send this to payosmoreucsc at gmail.com and that would be awesome.
And I think just like, you know, really like, Students at other institutions can then use this to talk about the possibilities for collective action at their institution and really what they need because it's not an isolated incident of precarious workers at a university.
We really hope this can spread.
We will definitely be like, you know, we'll post any links that you want to provide somewhere so people can find it for sure.
Real quick, Annie, as an undergrad student, what kind of impacts are you seeing this happen?
Like, what have on you as an undergrad student?
Well, I have not been to class in about a month.
So, I mean, this also kind of ties into what you guys are saying as far as what other people can do.
I think that there is a huge Misunderstanding or just like a lack of understanding of the importance of strikes and the history of like labor movements in this country and why things like this are extremely important and why they work.
So I think that a lot of the rhetoric I see from other undergrads is like grad students are like holding our education hostage.
They're holding our grades hostage.
No.
Yeah.
No, that's not the case.
So like, you know, what grad students are doing is that they're trying to demand Like a living wage and this is not just a problem obviously that's isolated to grad students and this is also why I think it's really imperative for people to understand why they're striking and why like labor history is important to understand because this has been squashed out of people and I think that people have been really complacent in just like accepting this narrative of like you have to like work hard and like basically accept poverty wages in order to like
You know, pick yourself up by your bootstraps.
Like, if you work hard, you're going to attain, like, some middle-class American dream.
Which is, like, not the case.
Less and less we're seeing that.
And, you know, it's also one of the ways that the UC saves money on labor is that they're bringing lecturers.
So these lecturers are people oftentimes with, who have completed their degrees, who have PhDs in their field, and are making about, like, what, 19k a year?
Yeah, that's the median cost that you see.
Yeah, median cost.
So, you know, like, trying to understand these things of what actually, like, Working hard doesn't get you shit if you're living, like, basically under conditions of, like, you know, neoliberalism and capitalism.
So, you know, to add on to that, but as an undergrad, like I said, I have not been to class in a month and the UC really loves to drive this line, like, basically saying that grad students are harming Um, undergrads and so much so that that's why they're like being fired.
But what we're seeing actually, because the grad students were fired, that is like a huge chunk of the labor force that they've just gotten rid of.
Yeah.
So, and the cognitive science department, I believe, um, and psychology.
Yeah.
They just sent out a mass email to the undergrads saying that they actually can't offer, um, as many seats in these classes as they thought they would because their labor force has been cut in half.
So what that means is people are unable to graduate in time.
Wow, yeah.
And that is the fault of the admin and the people who are in charge of the UC, who can effectively stop the strike by bargaining with grad student workers, which they have not done.
Easily.
I think one thing I'm kind of seeing from this is how silly you end up looking when you don't support, when you are not... I know it's kind of awful, but I did get a little bit of a chuckle when you said that people who were turning in grades still got fired.
Because, yeah, nobody should lose their job, but if you're going to go ahead and, you know, be a little, you know, be essentially a, I don't want to say scab, but if you're going to sell out like that, then for no reason at the end of the day, that's kind of sad.
And this, the impact this is making, like you said, on the grad students, it's disgusting to see that be twisted.
And put the blame put on the people who are really just fighting for a livelihood.
And I'm really glad that we have students like yourself, undergrad students like yourself.
And I see, you know, I see other comrades on the internet, you know, not going to class and how important that is.
So I really want to push that because the narrative that they're pushing is that people like Tony are, like you said, He's the reason that you're not graduating, which is disgusting and bullshit because all they could do is just take a small, tiny piece of their huge fund and give it to him so he can have a nice, not even a nice life, but just a livable life.
Right.
And then you can graduate.
If anybody gets anything out of this, it's that I really don't want them to fall for that narrative.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think there's Part of this that's been so great is the massive outpouring of undergraduate solidarity.
It's been amazing.
We have around 2,000 grads on this campus compared to around 18,000 undergrads.
It's very undergrad heavy, so to get anything done in organizing, you kind of really need undergrad support.
So we had campus shutdowns all through the first week.
Also in other weeks, which was, you know, really like kind of led by undergrads.
It was amazing.
The third day there were 17 arrests for blocking the entrance to campus.
You know, many of those were undergrads.
That's been great.
But I think undergrads kind of like, you know, the line that's being peddled by the administration is that what is at risk here Is the grades, like the grade is the thing that you need to get a future in, you know, to get you to get you a job, this will be something that's legible to your employer.
And I think, I don't, you know, I don't want to speak for undergraduates, but like, I think a thing that like I'm hearing for a lot from a lot of people is like, really, like, there's kind of a reconnection to teaching and learning, because we've held lots of teach-ins at the Pickett, You know, held lots of lectures there and people are really sort of thinking about what university means to them.
It's not just like a thing to get you into a job, it's something where you think about your conditions and you read and you learn and you talk to your peers and all of this stuff.
Yeah, the teach-ins have been phenomenal.
Some of them are undergrad led and some of them are grad student led, and actually some faculty have come to the picket line to support as well.
And Christine Hong, a professor in the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies program and also in literature, just gave a really amazing teach-in the other day about the history of ethnic studies at UCSC, which also ties into history of kind of like student movements as well at UCSC.
So yeah, it was great.
That's awesome.
I hope that this passion sparks something and I want to see it spread beyond the campus, and I think it does.
I think that this kind of energy is contagious and does spread.
Are you seeing a lot of discussion about things outside of the campus because of this, in these groups, in these spaces?
Are you seeing lots of discussions about electoral politics?
Are you seeing a kind of a push in activism that way because of this?
Yeah, so... Actually, you have an accent.
I don't really care what you say about us.
I'm totally kidding.
So, you know, I don't actually care about the elections.
You all can burn.
No, no, no.
And we will if things don't go the right way.
Yeah, so, yes, you know, like there is like a spectrum of political, there's a spectrum of political opinions sort of all subsumed within the KOLA movement.
You know, kind of the core group of organizers, who sort of first articulated the demands.
There's lots of people involved in the DSA here and like different kinds of town politics.
There has been, I mean this last week though, there's been a lot of conversation about holding, about opening up the campus again.
We've been having a picket every day at the base of campus that the Metro buses in town don't cross.
There's been a push from more moderate voices to open up the campus again so that people can get on to vote.
This might not be super interesting information, but it's just internal stuff that's been going around.
There are efforts to have voter taxis every day.
There are people involved.
There's a there's a recall of two progressive City Council members that's going on It's a stupid thing that we're fighting like different members of our group are fighting Santa Cruz for Bernie is often there Yeah, that's that's that's because the timing is is You know, I believe it's more coincidental than anything, but I mean it is kind of important Like you said there you do see
If you see people like, cause where I'm seeing it, where I'm seeing it through my lens on, you know, basically on my phone, you know, to be honest, is I'm seeing it through, um, like you said, DSA, um, through a lot of people that are like Bernie supporters.
Um, and I do think that it is important when people look around and see like, okay, who is actually supporting the people around us, our peers, the workers, um, like, you know, What I perceive as, you know, real America, my friends.
And you do see that.
And like I said, I think that's really important.
Not even when it comes to like the reality or things like that, but actually just optics.
It's a good look.
And I think that's really, I think that's important.
Yeah.
One thing that's amazing that, yeah.
As I said, we're part of the UAW, but obviously we're not autoworkers.
This is just the union that represents us as teachers.
But actual autoworkers have been following this and have written things saying this is the way to go.
Autoworkers in Chicago and Kansas City sent us food to different meetings and have been contributing to our strike funds.
This is great.
That's fucking beautiful.
That right there warms your heart.
Seeing the blue collar supporting academia.
I've never gone to college.
I have no further education.
I want to go there one day.
I've gone as far as I've always had friends that have gone to school and I've used to just go to classes.
I've never been able to do that, and I've always been envious of that.
And I think it's really cool to see something that I've seen as almost an upper class thing, to me, is college.
See the blue collar reach out and support.
That's awesome.
That's what we need.
I think that's going to be the biggest game changer if you want to make any sort of impact in making this This time in this particular country better.
That's inspiring.
Is there anything else that you really wanted to get out?
Anybody you wanted to shout out or even call out?
Is there somebody that we can email?
Is there an email that people need to maybe blast?
Or is there a phone number that we can maybe call?
Is there something that we can do to really be a pain in someone's side to support y'all?
Yeah, you can email Quentin Williams and tell him to go fuck himself.
Yeah, yeah.
You can email Janet Napolitano to go fuck herself.
Sorry, one more time, I talked over that one.
No, Janet Napolitano.
Okay, yeah.
To go fuck herself.
Who, if for those of you who aren't listening, don't know, Janet Napolitano is the UC president, and is the former person in like the, who is the, Head of the Department of Homeland Security.
Yeah, that's why I know her.
Oversaw mass deportations.
Absolute piece of shit.
Now in charge of the UC system, which makes total sense.
Yeah, that's so fucking weird.
Yeah, that's so gross.
What's nepotism again?
What is that?
That's so sick.
Well, thank you so much for coming and talking to us.
You have our full support.
Keep on fighting.
Keep on doing it.
We really appreciate you.
It's inspiring, and I really hope the best for you.
And let's fucking do this.
Thank you so much, comrades, for coming on.
Thanks, Tony, for having us.
Also, you know, you're free to come to the Pickett and sit in on some teach-ins.
Oh, yeah.
You really want to have the college experience.
That was that's really that's such a cool thing.
If that was happening, like locally, I would go into that.
You know, that's that's really cool.
That's fucking.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
Yeah.
I'm going to stop recording, but I didn't want to just keep bugging you guys.
