STOP Concession Bargaining! No COLA, No Contract! COLA & Housing for All Unions & Workers

At UC: STOP Concession Bargaining! No COLA, No Contract
COLA & Housing for All Unions & Working People
Time To Shut It Down With Mass Labor/Community Solidarity

UFCLP Statement (12/2/22)

The strike of 48,000 UC UAW workers in California is a struggle for all working people. Their demands of a COLA and housing is an issue not only for them but for the entire working class. The strikers have the power to win this historic statewide strike.

After being out for more than three weeks, the UAW 2865 bargaining team voted 10 to 9 to abandon their demands because they say that is the only way they can get the UC bosses and regents to negotiate. This is called concession bargaining and must be rejected. It is what the UAW bureaucrats in Detroit have been doing for decades and it has created a two-tier system for UAW members in auto. The UAW in its early history was a leader in the fight for COLA, which was won by auto workers. It can be won at UC, but the UC bosses and regents know that if UC UAW workers win, it could in- spire other unions statewide and nationally to join the fight. This is the last thing they want.

The way to win this strike is to expand it to the other unions on the campuses and the rest of the working class. AFSCME 3299 which represents over 30,000 service workers, have not been organized to support the picket lines by their leadership. The president of AFSCME 3299, Kathryn Lybarger, who is not only the head of this UC local, but president of the California AFL-CIO, has been MIA. They are worried about embarrassing their pal Gavin Newsom, who is siding with UC managers and his own hand-picked regents.

United front action assemblies of all UC workers need to be organized daily to fight union busting and privat- ization, which is the agenda of the administration, the Regents and the Democrats in California. This is the lesson of the Columbia strike.

We also need to demand that the University and all public education be free, as it was 40 years ago. California had a $97 billion surplus, yet the UAW leadership made no demands that this surplus be used for living wages for all public workers in California. California has over 180 billionaires and yet students are going into debt to pay to go to UC. This ludicrous situation is how things are under the Democrats, who are really representing these billionaires.

The entire AFL-CIO should also be organizing to get the 2 million workers in California on the picket lines to win this strike and bust the union busters.

The California AFL-CIO is also completely silent about the fact that Democratic Governor Newsom and the Democrats in the legislature are the ones in control of UC and they are allowing this massive union busting by the administration and UC regents, who are mostly multi-millionaires, appointed by Democratic governors. They refuse to call out Newsom and the other Democrats in the legislature allowing these union bust- ers a free hand. There was no mention of Newsom at the UC-UAW rally.

In fact, the UC Labor Relations Director Letitia Silas formerly worked for the national union-busting law firm Jackson Lewis. This is the same company that was helping billionaire Jeff Bezos stop unionizing efforts at Amazon. The UC Regents have also spent millions of dollars for more cops and are one of the largest housing operators involved in property speculation and gentrifi- cation. They also are working to privatize People’s Park in Berkeley and near other campuses with market-rate housing. These regents must be replaced by a democratic structure of elected regents from the unions, working class and the communities that they should be serving.

The ex-officio members of the Regents, who include the Governor Newsom, Lt. Governor, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Leader of the Assembly, have all been silent about the strike for living wages and against the union busting.

UC is spending millions of dollars on lawyers to fight the unions and the Democrats are keeping their mouths shut. Like Biden and the Democrats in Congress, they talk about being “pro-labor” but when push comes to shove, they are on the other side with the capitalists and voted to push a slave labor contract for 120,000 railroad workers with no sick leave. This shows concretely the need for a mass democratic labor party. UC strikers need to unite with railroad workers and ILWU long- shore workers for action at the ports of Los Angeles and Oakland. The ILWU is also working without a contract and a united fight would electrify this struggle.

We need to get all unions in California to organize to bring their members to the picket lines and shut the UC system down. UAW strikers should go to their labor councils and call on all affiliated locals to organize to support the picket lines and strike by organizing their members to also take up the demand for COLA and housing. California workers also cannot afford housing and are ending up commuting many hours or living in their cars.

The United Front Committee For A Labor Party supports united fronts against privatization and attacks on public education and we believe that this can only be achieved by building a mass democratic labor party. Our unions must have their own political party that will fight privatization and slave labor wages, and defeat the racists and fascists who are organizing to terrorize and murder working people.

United We Stand, Divided We Fall An Injury To One Is An Injury To All Labor Party NOW!

United Front Committee For A Labor Party http://www.ufclp.org info [at] ufclp.org