Please donate to the UAW Local 4811 Strike Fund

UAW Local 4811 is updating their website with useful information about the strike and the employer's attempts to block the union's progress. Our blog has also carried many articles about the strike movement: see here and here. Our key point today is that the union is in special need of our collective solidarity as the California university system's attempts to block the spread of the strike movement cause new problems for the striking workers. Still, this strike is making new labor history. 

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.     

What the UAW Won At Daimler

 From Portland Jobs with Justice:

After making a credible threat to strike, the UAW reached a historic deal at Daimler Trucks. Thanks to our labor and community members who supported UAW Daimler Global Day of Solidarity at the North American HQ (right here in Portland) to put the company on notice!

The tentative agreement includes:

- 25% raises
- Abolishing wage tiers
- COLA for 1st time
- Profit sharing for the first time

Total worker compensation will go up as much as 67%!

Two Important Labor Solidarity Calls from Portland Jobs With Justice (AND A VICTORY!)

The first post below regarding the academic student employees at Washington State University reached us this morning. I posted it just a few minutes ago and while I was working on another post word reached us that "THE STRIKE IS OFF ! WSU-CASE has a Tentative Agreement with WSU Administration!"

This is indeed good news and it shows what labor solidarity and a credible strike threat can accomplish. It's almost counter-intuitive. You may well avoid a strike if you help build solidarity among your coworkers, have a credible strike threat at hand that even management can see, win support from other union members and then from the public, and have good issues that everyone can identify with. It's much more about what happens between us and our coworkers every day and much less about what happens behind closed doors.

I'm going to leave the post up to draw attention to the union's victory.

More than a thousand academic student employees at Washington State University walked off the job today, after 11 months of university administration's unwillingness to offer a contract which supports fair wages, improved health care, paid parental leave, and more. Join WSU CASE-UAW (Coalition of Academic Student Employees-UAW) and UAW Local 492 down at the Vancouver branch of WSU to support workers on strike! Follow along on Facebook here, on Twitter here. And sign up for picket shifts here!

WSU entrance, 14100 NE Salmon Creek Ave., Vancouver WA

Beginning today, for as long as it takes! 7am - 5pm

Doughnut Workers United Blue Star will vote in their union election today! Following the election, you can join DWU Bluestar tonight, at 7pm, at Workers Tap in Portland.

10% of all sales will support the GoFundMe set up to aid the active union supporters who were furloughed during the unionization effort.

Join the fundraiser tonight and/or contribute directly here!

The connection between contract bargaining and politics

Taken from SEIU's Red Hot Worker of 1/9/24 

 

Who We Are Right Now

Members of Plumbers & Gasfitters Local 5 marched with union locals from across

 the country as part of Tradeswomen Build Nations last weekend in DC. Photo from

 the Metro Washington Labor Council.

“When I’m at work, I spend a lot of time waiting near idling diesel locomotive 

engines. I know this pollution is affecting my breathing. I can feel it, and I am not the

 only one. We have a lot of drivers who have health problems. It impacts everybody, 

especially in the communities that are right around these rail yards. Drivers like me

 used to have better jobs directly with the railroads, but they subcontracted our work

 so they could save money. Now, they don’t have to pay for things like health insurance

 for us. Here we are, doing the work, making them money, and all they are doing is

 making us sick.”---Cedric Whelchel of the United Electrical workers. Photo from

the UE Research and Education Fund.

"Hundreds of early-career researchers at the US National Institutes of 

Health (NIH) have voted overwhelmingly to form a union, nearly completing

 the official process required to do so. They plan to call on the agency — the world’s

 largest public funder of biomedical research — to improve pay and working conditions,

 and to bolster its policies and procedures for dealing with harassment and excessive workloads."

 Taken from an article by Max Kozlov that appeared in NATURE and in Portside. Photo by

 Melissa Lyttle.

Communications Workers of America District 1 Healthcare Workers met in Buffalo,

 N.Y., for their first ever Healthcare Worker Convening. Photo from CWA District 1.

Some Union News & Headlines For November 30, 2023

On this date in labor history Mother Jones died in 1930 and the anti-WTO march was held in Seattle in 1999. I know that we have some readers who were in Seattle for the 1999 demonstration, so a special thanks goes out to them today.

Photo taken from the Oregon AFL-CIO

The Oregon AFL-CIO listed the following in the Oregon Labor Dispatch under today's date:

Rally with SEIU Local 503 Members at Portland State University
Tomorrow: Friday, December 1, Urban Plaza, SW Mill St in Portland at noon
SEIU Local 503 members are rallying at PSU to show they are united, strong, and fighting for the fair contract they deserve. Join with them to send a strong message to PSU administration!

University of Oregon Labor Center Collective Bargaining Institute
December 3-8, University Place Hotel, Portland Oregon
Want to be ready for your next round of bargaining? Join union leaders from around the state at the Labor Education and Research Center's Collective Bargaining Institute. In this hands-on program, participants learn all the fundamentals of effective negotiations -- from drafting proposals and contract costing, to managing the bargaining team and finding a settlement. Scholarships are available! Click here for more details and to register online.

81st Annual Children’s Holiday Party - Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter
December 9, 9:00am -12:00pm, Ken Allen AFSCME Labor Canter, 1400 Tandem Ave NE in Salem
Join the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter for a free and fun-filled event with cookies, crafts, gift bags, live music and the one and only Caesar the No Drama Llama.

The Labor Market: Flea Market and Maker Fair
December 9-10, Goldsmith Blocks Building, 412 NW Couch in Portland, 10:00am - 6:00pm
Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind film worker flea market and maker fair! The Labor Market will feature original works of art, handcrafts and other creative products made by film workers, and a flea market where treasures you’ve seen on the screen in locally filmed tv shows and movies could be waiting to be discovered. All sales of goods go directly to the Union member-vendor. The market will have live music, entertainment, raffles, and special guest Santa Claus.

The following graphic comes from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). IATSE is one of many unions that, along with the AFL-CIO, are marking Native American Heritage Month. 

PCUN, Oregon's farmworker union, is reporting the following today:

Thanksgiving is a time to express gratitude for the hardworking people who harvest and process our foods, often under dangerous conditions and usually for a very low wage. According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), around 2.4 million farmworkers labor on US farms and ranches, and about 71% of farmworkers who work in crop production are immigrants. At least half, or 1.2 million farmworkers, are undocumented, which creates many barriers for families in the United States when it comes to accessing services that are critical for the well-being of our communities. One of the best ways to thank a farmworker is to support pathways to legalization and citizenship for the hands that feed America, in addition to supporting the collective bargaining rights of farmworkers.

We at the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Central Labor Chapter strongly encourage you to go to PCUN's website and support PCUN as you are able to.

Photo from KPIC

In other news...

* Labor's Community Service Agency has issued an appeal for support for union families over the holidays. Part of the solidarity appeal reads as follows:

We are humbly asking you to make a donation today, so collectively, we can provide holiday resources to our union families and create a memorable holiday season during a difficult time. We cannot continue our program without your financial support, as it is a crucial part of the work we do. Can we again rely on you to assist working families during the holiday season? Because harm to one brother or sister is harm to all of us.

Our message: Please help out if you can. Remember the old adage to give 'til it hurts and then 'til it feels good.

* The National Domestic Workers Alliance is gathering stories from people who have had to stay home because of issues with childcare. Collecting these stories is an important part of their campaign, but the Alliance is working on many other issues as well. Please go to their page and submit your story, but also consider joining in their December 11 Zoom event with Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su.

* The Oregon Center for Public Policy has a new plan out to build economic justice in Oregon. This means raising incomes, building workers' power, changing the tax system and much more. Can you get space on your union meeting or Chapter or Council agenda to discuss their plan and perhaps have a speaker from the Center?

* The Communications Workers of America is reporting a string of union organizing victories. According to the union, "Over the past month, workers have joined CWA at Education Week and Rising for Justice (Washington-Baltimore NewsGuild, TNG-CWA Local 32035), The Guardian and Journal Pioneer newspapers (CWA Canada Local 30130), Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (United Media Guild, TNG-CWA Local 36047), Google Help (Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009), and Wisconsin Watch (Milwaukee Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA Local 34051)." This short list does not include Wells Fargo workers at two bank branches in Albuquerque, NM, and Bethel, AL. who filed for the bank’s first-ever union elections on Monday.

* Trader Joe's United, the union seeking to represent workers at Trader Joe's, is working on a campaign to end junk fees and hold greedy corporations accountable to consumers. This campaign potentially affects most workers and deserves everyone's support. Also, please check in with the union as you consider your holiday shopping options.

* Starbucks Workers United is claiming a victory after their recent strike. The union says that "Our Red Cup Rebellion, where more than 5,000 Starbucks workers went on strike, has already landed a major victory - the ability for workers to pause mobile orders during especially busy rushes."

They need our help spreading the word on social media.

* A great learning and activating opportunity here: Minnesota unions and their community partners are gearing up for an unprecedented wave of potential strikes and community actions with a deadline of the first week of March 2024. This date likely coincides with similar potential action here in Oregon. Representing tens of thousands of workers with contracts expiring and other deadlines at that time, labor and allied organizations are working together to align their demands and narratives to win at the bargaining table and push politicians at city hall and the state capitol. We have much to learn from this organizing.

Join Bargaining for The Common Good, In These Times, The Center for Innovation in Worker Organization, CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, The Action Center on Race and The Economy, The Kalmanovitz Initiative, Workday Magazine and other partners on Tuesday, January 9th, 2024: at 3:00 PM (PST) for a webinar featuring representative labor and community leaders from across the movement. The talk will be about going on the offensive and winning. Go to Bargaining for the Common Good to register for the event.

Photo from the UAW

* An article by Julia Conley posted on Common Dreams yesterday under the headline "UAW Launches Largest Union Organizing Drive in US History" indicates that the United Auto Workers has been taking lots of calls from workers employed in non-union auto plants and parts suppliers since setting the contracts with the Big Three auto companies and feels confident that it can lead a new wave of mass organizing now. This union push will have to have two sides to it---organizing workers in the plants and taking on politics---because many of the plants are in "right to work states" and the union will face strong opposition from Republican office holders. Conley quotes the union's president as saying, "You don't have to worry about how you're gonna pay your rent or feed your family while the company makes billions. A better life is out there. It starts with you—UAW."

The AFL-CIO meanwhile announced that "After 11 weeks on strike, the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) reached a tentative agreement on Tuesday with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network (BCN). The contract includes the reduction of wage progression from 22 years to five, significant general wage increases, a $6,500 ratification bonus for Blue Cross Blue Shield workers, a $5,000 ratification bonus for BCN workers, inflation protection bonuses of $1,000 each year of the contract and protections against outsourcing. Members will remain on strike during the ratification process."

Photo from the UAW

Photo from the AFL-CIO's Daily Brief of 

November 30, 2023 and a UAW press release