I haven't posted much on this blog in the past year or so, and haven't posted any material since mid-May. With that in mind, I've decided to close this particular project down. I have finished with two significant parts of my life, graduate school and my participation in the attempt to reform the student worker union, which constitute a considerable portion of the material discussed on the blog. While I could provide a laundry list of moments that I wished I approached differently in both cases, I'm glad I was a participant in both the institution, and the formation of AWDU. I feel similarly about my involvement in the student movement, which managed to play a substantial role in challenging the privatization of the university despite its many flaws and explosive conflicts. I plan to keep the present blog up as a memory of that activity. However, unless I finally decide to finally write the systemic critique of the local that I've considered producing for a while, there will be no new activity on this blog.
However, I plan on starting two new blog projects in the near future, one focused on the critical study of science fiction as a genre and a subculture, which I plan on calling future ruins, and a second project that will deal with other areas of interest, which I most likely will call notes on damaged life or the children of marx and coca-cola. I'll post links for those projects when I get them set up. Producing these new venues will allow me to break away from the concerns of my past, while preserving a record of those interests. I'm always interested in working with collaborators. Please get a hold of me if you are interested in either project. I should also note that I am also happy to contribute my thoughts to anyone who would be interested in challenging the reactionary individuals who have largely taken over the union at UCI. One of my greatest disappointments was the inability to continue the legacy of reform unionism, and I hope folks take over that mantle, and make less, or at least more interesting mistakes.
Here is the new blog: The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola
Friday, September 5, 2014
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
notes from a suburban coffee shop
Despite my recent blog posting, I haven't been involved in the union since our strike on the first week of the quarter. To be honest, I wish I had gotten another week to work for the union, because I didn't have the chance to clean up the office, which wasn't in the best of shape due to a month or so of strike organization. I'm not too fond of a number of my successors, but they certainly deserve the opportunity to start with an orderly office. I would have also liked to finally get the orientations grievance settled, a process that I ironically started at the beginning of my tenure as Irvine's campus unit chair. My hope is that process will get resolved without me, but despite some genuine bureaucratic experience amongst some of that grouping, I'm not terribly optimistic that the grievance will be made a priority. I'm also fairly concerned that there isn't much effort to mobilize the Irvine membership for the upcoming strike in June, which is crucial for challenging the various unfair labor practices of the management of the University of California system. I hope I'm wrong, and I'm even willing to put in a little labor into the process if it was necessary.
Despite unemployment, I'm glad to be out, to be honest. I've been done with the university since late December, and while I thought it made sense to stick around a bit longer to provide some transition, it doesn't make sense to have someone representing grad students who was finished with their studies. Still, my final months were spent doing a lot more of the on the ground activities that I wanted to focus on. I got to talk to folks across the campus about the strike, from the physical and natural sciences to the humanities and social sciences. It was work I liked, but, to be honest, I was a bit burnt out by the institutional politics of the union, and even by the reform process that brought me into electoral office. At the most immediate level, that frustration was created by the intransigence of the former leadership, who never accepted the election of the reform group in any meaningful sense, but it also expanded to the divisions and contradictions within the reform group, which has been defined by a number of explosive fights along with long running tensions. In each case, the problems often stem back to the relationship has with our International union, who has left the local with very little ability to meaningfully act in its own interests. I'll discuss these issues at a further date, but I'd like to give myself some time to discuss those issues with a cooler analytical framework.
Other than that, I'm spending a lot of time looking for work. At this point, I'm largely stuck looking for employment in the precarious spaces of academic employment, ranging from lecturer position to post-doctoral fellowships, and even positions as tutors for the summer months. The process is fairly dreary and depressing. There aren't a lot of jobs available, those jobs available aren't terribly high paying or stable. However, this is a topic that has been covered by a lot of folks already, and no doubt their analysis offers more than I can currently offer. Beyond that, I haven't been doing a lot. I've been reading, and I attended the historical materialism conference in Toronto. I have to confess that the conference left me feeling disconnected and alienated, an experience that I suspect has more to do with my current state of mind, rather than anything to do with the conference at all. I just haven't felt any particular urgency to write at all over the past few months. This isn't because I don't have anything to say. I have some ideas about a essay on Robert Heinlein and Samuel Delany and about Butler and Jameson's readings of Louis Althusser to name two random ideas, but it just feels kind of pointless.
I want to make it clear that it's not an emotional, but a kind of analytical malaise this is at the heart of this issue. It just seems kind of pointless to make any sort of intervention right now. At one level, that sense of futility can be linked to a sense that anything I write won't get much attention, but more significantly, there just doesn't seem like there is much potential for substantial transformation within the current political conjunction. It seems fairly reasonable to assume that my field of vision is affected by my withdrawal from union activism, and lack of political projects, but it also reaches farther to my failed interventions into the reform process itself, that left me isolated from both the dominant northern group, and the discontented largely southern group as well. More than anything else, I miss a sense of being a part of an intellectual and political collectivity that I both contribute to and learn from. Which is not to say I'm lacking in friendship, but in a kind of collective engagement that has transformative potential, either on political or epistemological grounds. At the same time, it doesn't seem like our current political terrain is particularly hospital to such interventions, as well. I suspect that this will change with time.
Despite unemployment, I'm glad to be out, to be honest. I've been done with the university since late December, and while I thought it made sense to stick around a bit longer to provide some transition, it doesn't make sense to have someone representing grad students who was finished with their studies. Still, my final months were spent doing a lot more of the on the ground activities that I wanted to focus on. I got to talk to folks across the campus about the strike, from the physical and natural sciences to the humanities and social sciences. It was work I liked, but, to be honest, I was a bit burnt out by the institutional politics of the union, and even by the reform process that brought me into electoral office. At the most immediate level, that frustration was created by the intransigence of the former leadership, who never accepted the election of the reform group in any meaningful sense, but it also expanded to the divisions and contradictions within the reform group, which has been defined by a number of explosive fights along with long running tensions. In each case, the problems often stem back to the relationship has with our International union, who has left the local with very little ability to meaningfully act in its own interests. I'll discuss these issues at a further date, but I'd like to give myself some time to discuss those issues with a cooler analytical framework.
Other than that, I'm spending a lot of time looking for work. At this point, I'm largely stuck looking for employment in the precarious spaces of academic employment, ranging from lecturer position to post-doctoral fellowships, and even positions as tutors for the summer months. The process is fairly dreary and depressing. There aren't a lot of jobs available, those jobs available aren't terribly high paying or stable. However, this is a topic that has been covered by a lot of folks already, and no doubt their analysis offers more than I can currently offer. Beyond that, I haven't been doing a lot. I've been reading, and I attended the historical materialism conference in Toronto. I have to confess that the conference left me feeling disconnected and alienated, an experience that I suspect has more to do with my current state of mind, rather than anything to do with the conference at all. I just haven't felt any particular urgency to write at all over the past few months. This isn't because I don't have anything to say. I have some ideas about a essay on Robert Heinlein and Samuel Delany and about Butler and Jameson's readings of Louis Althusser to name two random ideas, but it just feels kind of pointless.
I want to make it clear that it's not an emotional, but a kind of analytical malaise this is at the heart of this issue. It just seems kind of pointless to make any sort of intervention right now. At one level, that sense of futility can be linked to a sense that anything I write won't get much attention, but more significantly, there just doesn't seem like there is much potential for substantial transformation within the current political conjunction. It seems fairly reasonable to assume that my field of vision is affected by my withdrawal from union activism, and lack of political projects, but it also reaches farther to my failed interventions into the reform process itself, that left me isolated from both the dominant northern group, and the discontented largely southern group as well. More than anything else, I miss a sense of being a part of an intellectual and political collectivity that I both contribute to and learn from. Which is not to say I'm lacking in friendship, but in a kind of collective engagement that has transformative potential, either on political or epistemological grounds. At the same time, it doesn't seem like our current political terrain is particularly hospital to such interventions, as well. I suspect that this will change with time.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Election Results for UAW 2865
I thought I would write a brief posting about the results of the recent triennial elections for my former local, UAW 2865. At the statewide level, it was an immense success for the AWDU ticket. AWDU and their allies won all of the executive board seats, along with 80% of the Joint Council. I have to admit that I was very skeptical of their chances, but we saw some impressive organizing, and new reform slates arise in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Riverside that were previously doubtful. A lot of credit should go to the activists involved who had to both negotiate a contract and win an election. In terms of the bargaining team, they won in San Diego, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Davis. Despite losing in Santa Barbara, we saw the first substantial reform ticket run for election there, and they had a fairly respectable showing, bringing in about 30% of the vote. Merced saw a split vote between reformers and admin caucus activists, despite a lack of reform candidates running for local positions. Riverside and Irvine were much more lopsided, giving landslide victories for the former leadership, who are often referred to as the administration caucus, despite their frequent re-namings. Riverside had a small core of reformers, who have a good chance to impact the local despite their small numbers.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Irvine, which had no substantial reform effort on the ground during the election. Part of that was due to the admittedly very successful efforts on the part of Coral Wheeler and Moshe Lichman to put together a decent full slate of candidates, and to construct an electoral machine. I might not like the kind of union infrastructure that they create. It's hierarchical and not directed to creating an active membership, but it is good at getting votes out at specific times. My hope is that we see some of the reform tradition taken up by the new officers of the local, but I have to admit, I hadn't seen much activity out of them during the contract campaign. The other part was due to the decision of reform activists to put their energy into other organizing endeavors, and move away from union organizing. It wouldn't have been my choice, but I'm also no longer involved. (edit: I'm also not sure that my feelings on the matter are terribly relevant.) I also can't blame those individuals for wanting to find forms of organizing that are less frustrating and more meaningful to them. Having been through the last triennial, I can't blame folks for wanting to avoid that ordeal. I really hope they find those collective efforts. (additional note: I should note that there were Irvine reform folks involved in the successful election efforts at UCLA.)
As a last note, I genuinely hope that we see a continued effort on the part of the new elected officials to actively contribute to the fight for a new contract. I suspect a number of them could be very good union representatives. But if that effort doesn't happen, I would recommend that folks take up those tasks themselves. Get a hold of me if that is the case, and I will get you in touch with people who can help you. (I also strongly suspect that despite not running for office; we'll see Irvine reform folks at the front of the contract fight.)
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Irvine, which had no substantial reform effort on the ground during the election. Part of that was due to the admittedly very successful efforts on the part of Coral Wheeler and Moshe Lichman to put together a decent full slate of candidates, and to construct an electoral machine. I might not like the kind of union infrastructure that they create. It's hierarchical and not directed to creating an active membership, but it is good at getting votes out at specific times. My hope is that we see some of the reform tradition taken up by the new officers of the local, but I have to admit, I hadn't seen much activity out of them during the contract campaign. The other part was due to the decision of reform activists to put their energy into other organizing endeavors, and move away from union organizing. It wouldn't have been my choice, but I'm also no longer involved. (edit: I'm also not sure that my feelings on the matter are terribly relevant.) I also can't blame those individuals for wanting to find forms of organizing that are less frustrating and more meaningful to them. Having been through the last triennial, I can't blame folks for wanting to avoid that ordeal. I really hope they find those collective efforts. (additional note: I should note that there were Irvine reform folks involved in the successful election efforts at UCLA.)
As a last note, I genuinely hope that we see a continued effort on the part of the new elected officials to actively contribute to the fight for a new contract. I suspect a number of them could be very good union representatives. But if that effort doesn't happen, I would recommend that folks take up those tasks themselves. Get a hold of me if that is the case, and I will get you in touch with people who can help you. (I also strongly suspect that despite not running for office; we'll see Irvine reform folks at the front of the contract fight.)
Monday, April 28, 2014
What Do You Call A Caucus That Refuses To Call Itself A Caucus? A Critique
In the final months of my involvement in the union, I saw the revival of an interesting phenomenon, the former leadership who formed the USEJ (United For Social and Economic Justice) caucus during the last triennial election denying that they were members of that caucus, or that they were even members of a caucus at all. It is a strange claim to make. After all, that group continues to vote in a lock step fashion that puts the reform AWDU (Academic Workers for a Democratic Union) caucus to shame, and their secret caucus list serve was accidentally leaked to the full union joint council list serve.* It was pretty apparent that the group was still operating as a caucus, and that it was made up primarily of the remaining members of USEJ. (Ironically, the group has existed in previous formations before USEJ as Adam Hefty noted, but USEJ was the first time that they opened acknowledged that they were in fact a separate and independent caucus.) It was only a matter of a week or two that they finally acknowledged their existence for the triennial elections,** renaming themselves SWITCh, and erasing their past history. Which brings us to the question, what are the implications of this refusal to acknowledge caucus behavior?
I'd like to start off by saying that there is nothing wrong with being engaged in, or forming a caucus, in an of itself. After all, forming a caucus is basic aspect of self-organization. Caucuses allow for people to form groups to affect the direction of an organization or institution. Often this involves a lot of communication, frequently in private, about the ways that they can affect the direction of the organization, what is possible and what is not possible, and how the group wants to orient itself within those possibilities. Sociologist and labor studies scholar Judith Stepan-Norris, along with other labors studies scholars in fact have noted that the existence of multiple competing caucuses contributes to the health of unions, because the caucuses have to be more responsible to the needs of the membership. After all, if a caucus doesn't fulfill those needs, the membership can simply vote in another caucus. Historically, the decline of the labor movement can be linked to the expulsion of the communists from the AFL-CIO, which left the conservative leadership without competition. In many ways, we formed the AWDU caucus four years ago to return to this democratic tradition of unionism.
However, that system is dependent on an open and fair process. The right to self-organize also needs to be linked with the responsibility for your collective actions within that caucus. We can see this in play with the AWDU ticket, who has connected itself to a three year legacy, that has its flaws and contradictions despite some impressive successes. But the former leadership is trying to short circuit this process with their rebranding campaign. As I already noted, until recently, the former leadership group denied that they were even a caucus, and their current website refuses to acknowledge that a large percentage of their eboard candidates were involved in the last triennial under the USEJ banner. A number of them had bargained on previous contracts, and had created the shell of a union that existed before the AWDU take over. Two of them ran while not even being students in the previous triennial election. Whatever you think about these facts, they seem fairly significant within the context of an electoral campaign, and the rebranding campaign is a pretty egregious effort to subvert that basic aspect of democratic governance. At a basic level, you need to take responsibility for your own actions if you are a responsible member of a caucus, otherwise you are taking the democratic right to choose a political direction for the union from the membership.
The problem goes further than that, when you start bringing in the context of the debates where the denials were initially made. In each of the cases, the person denying the existence of the caucus would follow up with the statement that they were 'simply interested in the good of the union.' The implications of the statement were fairly obvious, implying that the individuals who were involved in the AWDU caucus were not. At a basic level, this sort of analysis is fundamentally flawed. Workers' organizations are simply too complex to declare that one is 'simply interested in the good of the union.' Unions have been defined by internal as well as external antagonism, debating over who should be a part of such organizations, how they should organize new workers, as well as what should be the goals of such organizations. We've seen conservative unions and revolutionary unions, deeply democratic unions and cults of personality. To claim you are 'simply interested in the good of the union' is an attempt to erase this rich history, and to place your conception of the means and ends of the union movement as the exclusive means and ends to that movement. For more context on this tradition within the UAW as a whole, I recommend reading this essay by Barry Eidlin.
It's difficult to avoid the authoritarian implications within the claim to 'simply act in the good of the union', however I'd like to spell that aspect of the claim out with a bit more clarity. We can look at the relationship between election claims and on the ground behavior to do that. In previous elections, many of the candidates linked to the former leadership group, such as Coral Wheeler and Moshe Lichman, have produced propaganda that claimed that they were opposed to caucuses per se, and wanted to abolish the caucus system. It's a claim that generally indicates a position of moderation within U.S. politics, a desire to compromise and bring people together. However, the behavior of those members has not contained those practices. Instead, we have seen a lack of any interest to compromise on any issues, whether at the Joint Council or within the bargaining table. Members of the former leadership caucus have even gone as far as to claim that AWDU activists don't support the demand for the rights for undocumented graduate students, giving management the impression we are divided on the issue, when this is an issue that both caucuses strongly support. In effect, rather than creating a strong unity on this issue to win it at the bargaining table, which is still a strong possibility at this point, they have muddled the issue for partisan purposes. We effectively find a situation in which the attempt to end caucuses is really the effort to end the reform caucus and return to the one party situation we previously saw.
To make this point a bit more concrete, it makes sense to return to a rather contentious debate that occurred last summer during a the quarterly Joint Council Meeting. That meeting had a surprise presentation by Coral Wheeler and Jason Struna about the implications about not focusing the bargaining process the summer. The presentation argued two things, that we had succeeded more than other unions, and that taking a long time to bargain would have catastrophic results. At least, that's what I got through the shoddy analogies to unions who had single digit membership numbers and scare tactics. We saw the same threat of catastrophe on the former leadership's proxy blog, Paycheck First, who also promised catastrophe if we took the route we eventually took for bargaining, and the similar dire predictions being made regularly on the email list of the Joint Council. At this point, it's pretty obvious that we're not facing catastrophe. Instead, we're looking at a potential contract that contains no take backs, has unprecedented language in support of all-gender bathrooms and lactation facilities, and continues to fight for a voice on class sizes, rights for undocumented students, and a competitive wage increase. The university is currently offering a pay increase, that while inadequate, is substantially larger than most of our previous contracts.
Rather than admit their error, the former leadership have simply moved the goal posts, and are now insisting we could have achieved the same things. Obviously, there's no way of knowing what would have happened in such a counter-history, but it's hard to imagine that we would have gotten so far on the issue of all gender bathrooms without the participation of hundreds of activists at and outside the bargaining table. It's also hard to imagine that we would have the university genuinely discussing a competitive wage gap, and even make a pretense of discussing class size and the rights of undocumented students without such input. It basically is an effort to erase the importance of rank and file activism from the contract process. But more substantially, it's a moment where the individuals who made those claims have taken no responsibility for them, either to acknowledge their falsity, or the potential damage that they could have had on the bargaining process. It subverts the possibility of having an honest debate over the contract campaign, or critically evaluating the goals and processes of the bargaining team, all of which are important to a successful contract campaign. Instead, we are offered a debate in which one side continually makes outrageous claims and simultaneously denies its previous claims as they are debunked.
More than anything else, this relentless campaign against the reform process has shown the strength and perseverance of the reform effort, which has dramatically shifted the conversation in the UC system from a system that offered only fee increases and shrinking class selection, to a system where we haven't seen a fee increase for two years, along with other reforms. It would be a lie to say that this process has been drama and error free, but it's difficult not to be impressed. We ended the perpetual cycle of fee hikes. We accomplished that through demonstrations where our members were pepper sprayed and arrested, petition drives, and even lobbying efforts. We've also seen a level of activity that has not been previously seen in our formerly moribund union, with most of elected position being filled. We've seen a bargaining process that successfully brought out student-workers in solidarity with AFSCME, and a successful strike in response to university intimidation. Above all, we've seen a level of member participation in the bargaining that is unprecedented in union history thanks to the introduction of open bargaining, and the recognition that our ability to win a great contract cannot be simply won by nine clever individuals at the bargaining table. All of that has occurred in a setting where we have received at best no support from a third of the union who still aligns themselves with the former leadership, and often opposition. It makes you wonder where we could be if they had even offered a small amount of critical support on some of the issues. (One added note: We reached none of these achievements alone. It has involved a lot of cooperation with other unions, graduate and undergraduate groups, and other groups.)
I hope everyone goes out to support their statewide and local AWDU chapters, rather switching back to the deeply authoritarian structure of business unionism we saw from our local in the past. In Irvine, you should support Michelle Glowa for President, Mar Velez for Northern Vice-President, Ren-yo Hwang for Southern Vice-President, Erik Green for Financial Secretary, Leslie Quintanella for Recording Secretary, Henry Maar, Susan Richardson, and Beezer de Martelly for Trustees, and Katy Fox-Hodess. At the Irvine level you should support Ana Baginski for Campus Unit Chair, Jordan Brocious for Recording Secretary, and Jordan Brocious and Jessica Conte for Irvine Unit Delegates (who will go to the International Union conference, where a potential dues hike will be decided on.)
*The Joint Council is the governing body of the union. It is made up of the Head Stewards, Campus Unit Chairs, and Recording Secretaries of each branch of the union, along with the statewide executive board. They meet quarterly to make decisions about the union, although they now also vote online for issues after AWDU took over.
**The triennial elections bring all union positions up for election. We're about to have another triennial election April 29th and April 30th.
I'd like to start off by saying that there is nothing wrong with being engaged in, or forming a caucus, in an of itself. After all, forming a caucus is basic aspect of self-organization. Caucuses allow for people to form groups to affect the direction of an organization or institution. Often this involves a lot of communication, frequently in private, about the ways that they can affect the direction of the organization, what is possible and what is not possible, and how the group wants to orient itself within those possibilities. Sociologist and labor studies scholar Judith Stepan-Norris, along with other labors studies scholars in fact have noted that the existence of multiple competing caucuses contributes to the health of unions, because the caucuses have to be more responsible to the needs of the membership. After all, if a caucus doesn't fulfill those needs, the membership can simply vote in another caucus. Historically, the decline of the labor movement can be linked to the expulsion of the communists from the AFL-CIO, which left the conservative leadership without competition. In many ways, we formed the AWDU caucus four years ago to return to this democratic tradition of unionism.
However, that system is dependent on an open and fair process. The right to self-organize also needs to be linked with the responsibility for your collective actions within that caucus. We can see this in play with the AWDU ticket, who has connected itself to a three year legacy, that has its flaws and contradictions despite some impressive successes. But the former leadership is trying to short circuit this process with their rebranding campaign. As I already noted, until recently, the former leadership group denied that they were even a caucus, and their current website refuses to acknowledge that a large percentage of their eboard candidates were involved in the last triennial under the USEJ banner. A number of them had bargained on previous contracts, and had created the shell of a union that existed before the AWDU take over. Two of them ran while not even being students in the previous triennial election. Whatever you think about these facts, they seem fairly significant within the context of an electoral campaign, and the rebranding campaign is a pretty egregious effort to subvert that basic aspect of democratic governance. At a basic level, you need to take responsibility for your own actions if you are a responsible member of a caucus, otherwise you are taking the democratic right to choose a political direction for the union from the membership.
The problem goes further than that, when you start bringing in the context of the debates where the denials were initially made. In each of the cases, the person denying the existence of the caucus would follow up with the statement that they were 'simply interested in the good of the union.' The implications of the statement were fairly obvious, implying that the individuals who were involved in the AWDU caucus were not. At a basic level, this sort of analysis is fundamentally flawed. Workers' organizations are simply too complex to declare that one is 'simply interested in the good of the union.' Unions have been defined by internal as well as external antagonism, debating over who should be a part of such organizations, how they should organize new workers, as well as what should be the goals of such organizations. We've seen conservative unions and revolutionary unions, deeply democratic unions and cults of personality. To claim you are 'simply interested in the good of the union' is an attempt to erase this rich history, and to place your conception of the means and ends of the union movement as the exclusive means and ends to that movement. For more context on this tradition within the UAW as a whole, I recommend reading this essay by Barry Eidlin.
It's difficult to avoid the authoritarian implications within the claim to 'simply act in the good of the union', however I'd like to spell that aspect of the claim out with a bit more clarity. We can look at the relationship between election claims and on the ground behavior to do that. In previous elections, many of the candidates linked to the former leadership group, such as Coral Wheeler and Moshe Lichman, have produced propaganda that claimed that they were opposed to caucuses per se, and wanted to abolish the caucus system. It's a claim that generally indicates a position of moderation within U.S. politics, a desire to compromise and bring people together. However, the behavior of those members has not contained those practices. Instead, we have seen a lack of any interest to compromise on any issues, whether at the Joint Council or within the bargaining table. Members of the former leadership caucus have even gone as far as to claim that AWDU activists don't support the demand for the rights for undocumented graduate students, giving management the impression we are divided on the issue, when this is an issue that both caucuses strongly support. In effect, rather than creating a strong unity on this issue to win it at the bargaining table, which is still a strong possibility at this point, they have muddled the issue for partisan purposes. We effectively find a situation in which the attempt to end caucuses is really the effort to end the reform caucus and return to the one party situation we previously saw.
To make this point a bit more concrete, it makes sense to return to a rather contentious debate that occurred last summer during a the quarterly Joint Council Meeting. That meeting had a surprise presentation by Coral Wheeler and Jason Struna about the implications about not focusing the bargaining process the summer. The presentation argued two things, that we had succeeded more than other unions, and that taking a long time to bargain would have catastrophic results. At least, that's what I got through the shoddy analogies to unions who had single digit membership numbers and scare tactics. We saw the same threat of catastrophe on the former leadership's proxy blog, Paycheck First, who also promised catastrophe if we took the route we eventually took for bargaining, and the similar dire predictions being made regularly on the email list of the Joint Council. At this point, it's pretty obvious that we're not facing catastrophe. Instead, we're looking at a potential contract that contains no take backs, has unprecedented language in support of all-gender bathrooms and lactation facilities, and continues to fight for a voice on class sizes, rights for undocumented students, and a competitive wage increase. The university is currently offering a pay increase, that while inadequate, is substantially larger than most of our previous contracts.
Rather than admit their error, the former leadership have simply moved the goal posts, and are now insisting we could have achieved the same things. Obviously, there's no way of knowing what would have happened in such a counter-history, but it's hard to imagine that we would have gotten so far on the issue of all gender bathrooms without the participation of hundreds of activists at and outside the bargaining table. It's also hard to imagine that we would have the university genuinely discussing a competitive wage gap, and even make a pretense of discussing class size and the rights of undocumented students without such input. It basically is an effort to erase the importance of rank and file activism from the contract process. But more substantially, it's a moment where the individuals who made those claims have taken no responsibility for them, either to acknowledge their falsity, or the potential damage that they could have had on the bargaining process. It subverts the possibility of having an honest debate over the contract campaign, or critically evaluating the goals and processes of the bargaining team, all of which are important to a successful contract campaign. Instead, we are offered a debate in which one side continually makes outrageous claims and simultaneously denies its previous claims as they are debunked.
More than anything else, this relentless campaign against the reform process has shown the strength and perseverance of the reform effort, which has dramatically shifted the conversation in the UC system from a system that offered only fee increases and shrinking class selection, to a system where we haven't seen a fee increase for two years, along with other reforms. It would be a lie to say that this process has been drama and error free, but it's difficult not to be impressed. We ended the perpetual cycle of fee hikes. We accomplished that through demonstrations where our members were pepper sprayed and arrested, petition drives, and even lobbying efforts. We've also seen a level of activity that has not been previously seen in our formerly moribund union, with most of elected position being filled. We've seen a bargaining process that successfully brought out student-workers in solidarity with AFSCME, and a successful strike in response to university intimidation. Above all, we've seen a level of member participation in the bargaining that is unprecedented in union history thanks to the introduction of open bargaining, and the recognition that our ability to win a great contract cannot be simply won by nine clever individuals at the bargaining table. All of that has occurred in a setting where we have received at best no support from a third of the union who still aligns themselves with the former leadership, and often opposition. It makes you wonder where we could be if they had even offered a small amount of critical support on some of the issues. (One added note: We reached none of these achievements alone. It has involved a lot of cooperation with other unions, graduate and undergraduate groups, and other groups.)
I hope everyone goes out to support their statewide and local AWDU chapters, rather switching back to the deeply authoritarian structure of business unionism we saw from our local in the past. In Irvine, you should support Michelle Glowa for President, Mar Velez for Northern Vice-President, Ren-yo Hwang for Southern Vice-President, Erik Green for Financial Secretary, Leslie Quintanella for Recording Secretary, Henry Maar, Susan Richardson, and Beezer de Martelly for Trustees, and Katy Fox-Hodess. At the Irvine level you should support Ana Baginski for Campus Unit Chair, Jordan Brocious for Recording Secretary, and Jordan Brocious and Jessica Conte for Irvine Unit Delegates (who will go to the International Union conference, where a potential dues hike will be decided on.)
*The Joint Council is the governing body of the union. It is made up of the Head Stewards, Campus Unit Chairs, and Recording Secretaries of each branch of the union, along with the statewide executive board. They meet quarterly to make decisions about the union, although they now also vote online for issues after AWDU took over.
**The triennial elections bring all union positions up for election. We're about to have another triennial election April 29th and April 30th.
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