"If, by then, you decide to move against the students, you’ll have to go through the workers first."

Sister Laura Walton, President of the Ontario Fedeeration of Labour, knows how to talk to employers:  

May 25, 2024

VIA EMAIL: president@utoronto.ca
Meric Gertler
Office of the President
University of Toronto
27 King’s College Circle, Room 206
Toronto, ON M5S 1A1

Dear President Gertler,

I am writing in my capacity as the President of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), which represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario.

As the voice of Ontario’s labour movement, the OFL unequivocally supports the right of students to engage in peaceful protest on campus, as they call for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that are complicit in war and occupation.

I was therefore disappointed to hear about your ultimatum to the student encampment at the University of Toronto: clear out by Monday at 8:00 a.m. or be in violation of a trespass notice. As trade unionists, we know what good-faith bargaining looks like. You should, too. In most instances at the bargaining table, our members and your representatives have successfully negotiated numerous collective agreements, without resorting to strikes or lockouts.

The same approach should apply here. Negotiations must continue in good faith, and without threats of police intervention. The recent successful conclusions to the encampments at Ontario Tech University and at McMaster University, for example, shows what’s possible.

By contrast, when administrators choose repression, it rightfully provokes a response well beyond the students. On Monday, thousands of academic workers at the University of California went on strike to protest their employer’s use of violence to clear the encampments.

Universities should be where we learn to debate and disagree with each other–without the fear of violence. For Canada’s largest university to decide unilaterally when the debate should end, and when police repression should begin, is a betrayal of the values we claim to uphold. Indeed, your own Statement of Institutional Purpose describes these values clearly: Within the unique university context, the most crucial of all human rights are the rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom, and freedom of research. And we affirm that these rights are meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the university itself.

This is a mandate to support the students, not repress them. In this spirit, I urge you to reverse course immediately, and choose negotiations and discussion over ultimatums and repression. As a gesture of encouragement, I am calling on all trade unions and allies to join a solidarity rally on Monday at 8:00 a.m. at the student encampment at the University of Toronto. If, by then, you decide to move against the students, you’ll have to go through the workers first.

Sincerely,
LAURA WALTON
President

Portland State University American Association of University Professors is on the move!

Please join Portland State University-American Association of University Professors (PSU-AAUP) members for a union contract bargaining kickoff rally. Let’s come together to stop the cuts and win significant investments in PSU-AAUP’s working conditions which are student learning conditions!

An announcement from the PSU-AAUP website says "Across campus PSU-AAUP members continue to stage departmental meetings to get ready for bargaining the contract PSU-AAUP members and students deserve." 

Workers at the University of California represented by UAW Local 4811 are striking & need our support

The following is a loose recap from several sources of the rolling strike movement underway in the University of California university system and led by UAW Local 4811:

Academic workers led by UAW 4811 are going on an unprecedented strike to protect their rights to free speech, protest, and collective action. Members voted overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing a ULP strike over the violation of basic workplace rights like safety. The University of California system allowed counter-protestors to assault peaceful demonstrations and called riot cops on its students and workers. In the coming days, campus by campus, these workers will be standing up and walking out.

The union has stated their case with these words:

On the night of May 1-May 2, LAPD police in riot gear arrested more than 200 peaceful student protesters and academic workers exercising their legal right to demonstrate against the death, destruction and human suffering directed at the people of Gaza. Many of those arrested had spent the previous night seeking medical care or hospitalization after being physically attacked and maced by a group of anti-Palestinian counter-protesters . Though UCLA and LAPD were on notice of the attacks, they deliberately failed to respond.

An explanation of the Unfair Labor Practice charges that are being filed are here.

The strength of this movement lies in its ability to build solidarity between labor and social movements, deepen union organizing, defend and build upon social justice principles, and find new ways to protect workers who want to stand for social justice even when our rights are under attack. Some of the workers who are active in the strike movement were on strike in 2022 and come to the current strike with strike and organizing experience. This strike movement is being built in part in solidarity with Palestnian trade unionists. Other unions are respecting the picket lines and strike participation is increasing as the strike takes hold. The dangers here are that this is a spontaneous movement and that we need to keep focused on demands for a ceasefire in Palestine and not let this moment become primarily about the right to protest peacefully here in the United States. The main weaknesses here are that UAW Local 4811 is going into this fight without enough solidarity from others, that this is largely uncharted territory, and that the local needs more rank-and-file involvement in order to back up the threat of rolling strikes. And the same people who will attack an encampment might well attack picket lines.

Aside from the positives and negatives mentioned here, the strike movement that Local 4811 is leading depends on deep internal organizing that union activists have been engaging in for several years. That means that the union's leading activists are building structures that can respond to the current crises and other ones that will evolve in time, but it also means that what is happening in California with Local 4811 cannot be easily copied. If you want a local union that can take on big fights, you have to work towards that and doing that can take years. Mass strike movements hit a wall when the rest of us aren't also in motion.   

An article in Labor Notes written by Caitlyn Clark under date of May 14 gives us some helpful context for what is going on:

As campus protests—and violent police repression—continue to roll across the country, some unions are getting involved.

More than 2,700 protesters have been arrested on 64 college campuses since the initial arrests at Columbia University in New York on April 18. Encampments have appeared at 184 campuses worldwide. The protesting students are calling for full disclosure of their universities’ finances and divestment from all financial ties to weapons manufacturers and Israel’s war on Gaza.

Unionized academic workers are demanding decision-making power over their work and what it’s used for. For instance, academic workers in the astronomy department of the University of California Santa Cruz have organized to refuse to apply for or accept funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, weapons manufacturers, and military contractors.

In an open letter published by the magazine Science for the People in January, they wrote, “UC has received $295 million in research funding from the Department of Defense in FY 2022 alone… Technology that astronomers have developed for science is being misused to surveil and target people both within and outside the U.S.”

For others, the police assaults on protestors and university administrators’ attacks on campus free speech have become issues of contract violations and workplace safety. Auto Workers (UAW) Local 4811, representing 48,000 academic workers across the University of California system, filed unfair labor practice (ULP) charges against their employer over violent police attacks on the UCLA student encampment.

“UCLA unilaterally changed its workplace free speech policies without providing notice or bargaining,” Local 4811 said in a statement. “In so doing it violated its policy of content neutrality toward speech by favoring those engaged in anti-Palestine speech over those engaged in pro-Palestine speech.”

The local will hold a strike authorization vote over the ULP May 13-15. The vote could lead to thousands of academic workers striking for free speech and in solidarity with the student movement for Palestine. READ MORE HERE.

This video from Humboldt Freelance Reporting also gives some needed context:

The university system has seemed to be unwilling to meet with the union and resolve the issues at hand. The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has asked the University of California to meet with the union to work through what is motivating the filing of the Unfair Labor Practice charges, but UC instead asked the Board for an injunction against the strike. PERB has denied the injunction. This denial is going to help grow the strike movement. 

Rafael Jaime, the President of Local 4811, has been quoted in the media as saying, “It’s unfortunate that UC has not made progress toward remedying the unfair labor practices they have committed. Rather than put their energies into resolution, UC is attempting to halt the strike through legal procedures. Academic workers are united in our demand that UC address these serious ULPs, beginning with amnesty for our colleagues who are facing criminal or disciplinary proceedings because they spoke out against injustice.”

Common and popular ways to support the strike movement are:

1. Donate to the UAW 4811 Hardship Fund at UAW 4811 Hardship Fund,

2. Pass a Support Resolution – The Democratic Socialists of America have a template here at “Solidarity with 4811” to help you do this. Please feel good about crafting resolutions in your own words, and please send them to Loal 4811.

3. Show up at the picket lines, listen to the strikers, and provide what is needed if you can.

Some Thoughts On The Labor Movement & The Campus Protests

Student- and youth-led protests supporting a ceasefire in Gaza are sweeping across the United States and the world. In some countries, mass protests supporting a ceasefire and pro-Palestinian demands are being organized by coalitions that are led in part by unions and by popular social movements. This work is being done from many corners of world labor and from many perspectives.

Popular media in the United States often either ignores the protests being held here or so misstates the facts on the ground concerning these protests that media watchers and readers might come away with the mistaken impression that the campus protests are, by their nature and intent, anti-Semitic, violent, and led by people who are not students and who have ulterior motives. I want to encourage readers of this blog to explore counter-narratives concerning the campus protests. You might want to start here and here in order to begin examining counter-narratives concerning the protests. 

I believe that three aspects of these protest movements in the United States are not being sufficiently explored in either our popular or alterntive media and that these points should be of special interest to the labor movement. We should start by acknowledging that most unions in the United States have been strong supporters of Israel since its founding in 1948 and that this support has come with little discussion or debate and that some within labor who have opposed this course have lost their jobs and have found it difficult to find other employment or have faced other forms of censorship. For a broad view on this matter, see this article that appeared in Labor Notes and this article as well.

There is no principle at stake here that says that we cannot or should not take positions on events that are occuring elsewhere in the world and that may not be of immediate concern to the immediate welfare of all union members. Rather, the principle has been that the mainstream labor movement in the U.S. has tended to fall safely in step with U.S. foreign policy goals and has often enlisted in the ideological battle for winning those goals through AIFLD and the ACILS. (There have been notable exception to this principle.) Most union members will not be  familiar with AIFLD and ASCILS and are not aware that their unions are engaged in international affairs.  

In our current moment, on the other hand, we see many unions cautiously breaking with our past and adopting calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. Some perspective on this change in affairs can be found here, here, and here. The February 8 statement by AFL-CIO condemning "the attacks by Hamas on October 7th" and calling for "a negotiated cease-fire in Gaza—including the immediate ingrelease of all hostages and provision of desperately needed shelter, food, medicine and other humanitarian assistance to Gazans" and reaffirming AFL-CIO "support of a two-state solution for long-term peace and security” marked a historic turning point for labor.

This brings me to the first aspect of our present moment that I want to comment on. The campus protests are indeed initiated and led by students, but these protests are increasingly involving university faculty and staff, and to the extent that unionized faculty and staff are involved these protests become union issues. This is particularly underscored when faculty and staff are attacked by the police and counter-protestors, are threatened with firing, or are fired. See this recent post, this recent post, and this recent post that have appeared on this blog for some idea of what this looks like. My points here are that unions that represent workers who are being victimized have a duty of fair representation in many of these cases, whether the unions involved support a ceasefire or not, and that unions such as the United Auto Workers and the United Electrical Workers (UE) have especially large union locals with members that have been facing repression on campuses. UAW President Shawn Fein has been especially forthright in defense of UAW members who are engaging in protests. This post from the UAW tells a story in its own right.   

 

Mainstream media is not telling the story of the campus protests from a labor or working-class perspective. There are wild cards in play here. The media's emphasis has been on whether or not President Biden's reelection is at risk because of these protests and what is taken to be his "pro-Israel" stance and what is generally perceived as being subtle shifts in that stance. The popular line is that Biden is alienating young voters by not supporting a ceasefire and by supporting Israel but also stands to lose at least some Jewish support for his shifts in policy. The other wild card here, at least for the labor movement, is whether or not union support for a ceasefire and for union members who are victimized for protesting will lead to union growth on campuses or not. The UAW, the UE, and some CWA local unions that are engaging in supporting calls for a ceasefire and for defending their members who are attacked look good to large numbers of young people and to many campus workers right now. This feels a bit like the days of the Occupy movement and the early days of the Black Lives Matter movement in some ways. Both of those movements showed the labor movement that we have lots to learn or relearn and they have helped push us in positive directions.

The primary movements for social change in the late 1960s and early 1970s won limited gains or lost in part because they were easily characterized as being youth movements and then isolated. In our current moment, however, there is an opportunity to build solidarity between young people and campus workers and their unions. Union members, as much as anyone else, need to fully understand the demands being raised in the protests.

Photo from Hussein Malla / AP/ People's World. See this article for an analysis of 

what is at issue in the campus protests. 

Another aspect of the moment that we're in has to do with what Labor has to teach the pro-ceasefire movement and the protesters and activists. We understand the discipline needed in striking and winning while other social movements may not, or these movements may see things differently than we do. Striking is not only about getting your sign, marching in a circle for a few hours, and picking up strike pay. The recent Portland Association of Teachers strike (see here and here) reminds us that strikes are also about forming transformative new relationships, pitching in to help coworkers cover childcare and rent and car payments, and winning public support. Most of go into strikes knowing that we have to define what a victory is and with the patience that gives us the strength to fight for what we didn't win when we return to work. Doing this right takes discipline and experience. We can teach this to others if we stop to take a breath and use our critical thinking skills to analyze what has and has not worked for us in the past.

In line with this, we need to carefully study and adopt/adapt passive resistance and the intricate psychology of confrontational non-violence. Our labor history is full of useful examples of us using non-violent civil disobedence, and it would be hypocritical and wrong-headed for us to criticize others for following our example. Here is a great labor video to help us start understanding this:

One of the many remarkable features of the strike shown in the video above was that the strikers and their families and closest supporters stayed on message despite police brutality, hostile courts and other violence. The company was the primary target and the goal was a strong union contract and the union remained on message throughout the strike. This won strong public support and support from many prominent progressive people who would not have otherwise engaged with coal miners in Appalachia. I know this because I was there. 
 

My last point here builds on something that the labor movement knows and carries in our DNA but that we do not often acknowldge. We know from union organizing that we do not begin an organizing campaign with puttng forward maximum demands. We find core issues that unite most people and we become the living voice of those demands and we win over people who are neutral or sitting on the fence by listening to them and creating safe space with them and including what they want in our demands if that's possible. It's a slow and steady step-by-step process that can suddenly accelerate. In some sense, then, we organize on the basis of loving our co-workers more than we do on hating our bosses.

The movements for a ceasefire and for the liberation of Palestine do their best work when then start with demands for a ceasefire and peace and use those to split their opposition and win over or neutralize some who oppose them. By doing this they put the fence-sitters in the positon of having to choose between what is human and good and what is pro-war and pro-genocide. So long as the movements have been doing that they have been winning against all odds and are building a pro-peace majority before the November elections. 

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter or the Oregon AFL-CIO. Other opinions from union members in our region on this subject are welcome and will be appreciated.     

CWA Local 7065 Defends The Right To Protest & Models Solidarity

 

UAW Local 4811 & Other Unions Are Taking Action To Support Union Members Engaging In Protests

An important article in The Guardian under the headline "Union plans strike vote over crackdown on University of California Gaza protests" opens with the following:

The largest union of academic workers, which represents more than 48,000 graduate student workers throughout the University of California system, will hold a strike authorization vote as early as next week in response to how universities have cracked down on students’ Gaza protests.

“The use and sanction of violent force to curtail peaceful protest is an attack on free speech and the right to demand change, and the university must sit down with students, unions, and campus organizations to negotiate, rather than escalate,” read an announcement of the strike vote from UAW local 4811.

Earlier this year, the union voted by a margin of more than nine to one in favor of supporting a ceasefire, according to the announcement.

Read more here.

From UAW Local 4811

A May, 2024 post on UAW Local 4811's website gives the following advisory notice:

Last night, LAPD police in riot gear arrested more than 200 peaceful student protesters and academic workers exercising their legal right to demonstrate against the death, destruction and human suffering directed at the people of Gaza. Many of those arrested had spent the previous night seeking medical care or hospitalization after being physically attacked and maced by a group of anti-Palestinian counter-protesters. Though UCLA and LAPD were on notice of the attacks, they deliberately failed to respond.

In response, our union is preparing Unfair Labor Practice charges against UCLA arising from the Administration’s conduct and actions taken at their request. UCLA administration unilaterally took action that impacted our teaching, our work obligations, our safety and our academic freedom. Of note, under existing University policy, employees had the right to engage in peaceful protest at the worksite. When faced with the Palestine Solidarity encampment, UCLA administration unilaterally changed its policies without providing notice or bargaining. In so doing it violated its policy of content neutrality toward speech by favoring employees engaged in anti-Palestine speech over employees engaged in Pro-Palestine speech. It went further by unilaterally changing workplace policies by prohibiting pro-Palestine speech at the worksite. UCLA used its powers to not only change policy but then, in an unprecedented act, used brute force and police intervention to prevent students and workers from exercising what have historically been rights at the University.

As early as next week, academic workers will hold a Strike Authorization Vote to be able to respond to the Administration’s actions as circumstances dictate.

Yesterday, the Daily Californian reported that UC Berkeley management has started negotiations with the Free Palestine encampment. This option remains open to other campuses as well.

In solidarity,

Anny Viloria Winnett
Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA
ASE Trustee, UAW 4811

From the Graduate Labor Organization at Brown University 

Labor Historians & Academics Protest The Use Of Police To Quash Peaceful Campus Protests

On April 26, the Board of Directors of the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA) unanimously issued a statement condemning the use of police to quash peaceful campus protests. Since issuing that statement, we have been horrified to learn that a number of LAWCHA members have been arrested while engaged in peaceful protests and that at least one of those -- Annelise Orleck of Dartmouth -- was thrown to the ground and arrested on May 1 and has now been banned from the campus where she has taught for 34 years. In light of these disturbing developments and on behalf of LAWCHA, the Executive Committee has added the language in bold below to our original statement:

The elected board and officers of the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), the majority of whose members work and study on college and university campuses, is alarmed by the recent deployment of uniformed officers to forcefully break up peaceful demonstrations on multiple campuses around the country. We strongly condemn the deployment of law enforcement officers to shut down and disperse nonviolent protests and we urge campus officials to respect the free speech rights of students, faculty, and staff. Furthermore, we demand that colleges and universities immediately rescind bans of faculty, students, or staff from their campuses as a result of their exercising rights to free speech and assembly.


This statement was unanimously approved by the LAWCHA Board of Directors

Joseph A. McCartin, Georgetown University, President
Eileen Boris, University of California at Santa Barbara, Vice President
Cindy Hahamovitch, University of Georgia, Immediate Past President
Erik Gellman, University of North Carolina, Secretary
Liesl Orenic, Dominican University, Treasurer
Janine Giordano Drake, Indiana University, Bloomington, Board Member
Danielle Phillips-Cunningham, Rutgers University, Board Member
Kim Phillips-Fein, Columbia University, Board Member
Aldo A. Lauria Santiago, Rutgers University, Board Member
Colleen Woods, University of Maryland, Board Member
Natanya Duncan, Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of History,
Queens College, CUNY, Board Member
David “Mac” Marquis, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of South Carolina, Board Member
Verónica Martinez-Matsuda, University of California, San Diego, Board Member
Samir Sonti, CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, Board Member
Jane Berger, Moravian University, Board Member
Keona K. Ervin, Bowdoin, Board Member
Aimee Loiselle, Central Connecticut State University, Board Member
Gordon Mantler, George Washington University, Board Member
Joel Suarez, Harvard University, Board Member

Liat Spiro, College of the Holy Cross
Faith Bennett, UC Davis
Rebecca Jean Emigh, UCLA, Sociology
Emily E. LB. Twarog, University of Illinois
Omari Averette-Phillips, UC Davis
Paul Ortiz, University of Florida
Harry Targ, Purdue University. Retired
Joan Flores-Villalobos, University of Southern California
Nate Holdren, Drake University
Bill Barry
Alan Wierdak, University of Maryland
Tamar Carroll, Rochester Institute of Technology
Cathy Brigden, University of Tasmania
Dennis Deslippe, Franklin & Marshall College
Tom Alter, Texas State University
Laura Murphy, Dutchess Community College
Erik Loomis, University of Rhode Island
James Young, Pennsylvania Labor History Society/National Writers Union
David Brundage, University of California, Santa Cruz
Aaron Jesch, Washington State University Vancouver
Anne Lewis, UT Austin, TSEU-CWA 6186
Lois Helmbold, San Jose State U, emerita professor
Lorenzo Costaguta, University of Bristol
David Brody
Rosemary Feurer, Northern Illinois University
Greg Kealey, University of New Brunswick
Michael Pierce, University of Arkansas—UAEA/Local 965
Naomi R. Williams, Rutgers University
Anita Rupprecht, University of Brighton, UK
Lisa Phillips, Indiana State University
Thai Jones, Columbia University
Heather Ann Thompson, University of Michigan
Miriam Cohen, Vassar College
Jon Bekken, Albright College
Peter Rachleff, Macalester College (Emeritus)
Eladio Bobadilla, University of Pittsburgh
Brian Greenberg, Monmouth University
Peter Cole, Western Illinois University
Lane Windham, Georgetown University
Cristina Groeger, Lake Forest College
Michael Kazin, Georgetown University
Andrea Taylor
Ruth Needleman, Indiana University
Aaron Jaffe, The Juilliard School
Beth Robinson , Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
Shannan Clark, Montclair State University
John Enyeart, Bucknell University
Eric Fure-Slocum, St. Olaf College (emeritus)
Rick Halpern, University of Toronto
Robert Bruno, University of Illinois
Michael Lansing, Augsburg University
Jeff Schuhrke, Harry Van Arsdale Jr. School of Labor Studies, SUNY Empire State University
Priyanka Srivastava, Department of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Greta de Jong, University of Nevada, Reno
David Vaught, Texas A&M University
Sean Ahern, UFT
Michael Damien Aguirre, University of Nevada, Reno
Ian Rocksborough-Smith, University of the Fraser Valley
William Jones, University of Minnesota (past LAWCHA president)
Jacob Dorman, The University of Nevada, Reno
Michael Honey, University of Washington (past LAWCHA president)
Julie Greene, University of Maryland (past LAWCHA president)
Miriam Frank, retired professor of Humanities at New York University
Dan Graff, University of Notre Dame
James Bearden, SUNY Geneseo
Barbara Walker, UNR
Donna Haverty-Stacke, Hunter College, CUNY
Maggie Gray, Adelphi University
Deborah Cohen, University of Missouri-St. Louis
Robert Woodrum, Perimeter College of Georgia State University
Christopher Martin, University of Northern Iowa, United Faculty AFT/AAUP
Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara
Joe Berry, retired U of IL and City College of SF
Elizabeth McKIllen, University of Maine
Mary Reynolds, Reflective Democracy Campaign
Arman Azimi, College of the Holy Cross
David Zonderman, NC State University
William Keach, Brown University
Alex Miller, University of Washington Tacoma
Jeannette Estruth, Bard College and the Harvard Berkman-Klein Center
Kirsten Schultz, Seton Hall University
Edwin Rubel, University of Washington
Benjamin Goldfrank, Seton Hall University
Grace Reinke, University of New Orleans and United Campus Workers of Louisiana
Lynn Thomas, University of Washington
Raya Fidel, University of Washington
Dexter Arnold
Jana Lipman, Tulane University
Jacquelyn Hall , Emeritus UNC Chapel Hill (past LAWCHA president)
Leslie Bunnage, Seton Hall University
Margot Canaday, Princeton University
Rudi Batzell, Lake Forest College
Renata Keller, University of Nevada
Jennifer Brooks, Auburn University
James Kollros, retired
Emily Hobson, University of Nevada Reno
Kimberly Enderle, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Alyssa Ribeiro, Allegheny College
Jennifer Guglielmo, Smith College
Thomas Guglielmo, George Washington University
Shelton Stromquist, University of Iowa (past LAWCHA president)
Lizabeth Cohen, Harvard University
Jillian Jacklin, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay