UC Bargaining and Building a Better Union

Qe talk about the UC contract and how rank and file union members feel about bargaining, then discuss how to build an inclusive union that benefits everyone

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, podcast fans, it's me today, It's James. It's only James.
We're giving you some updates on the UC strike, but
we recorded these before some changes happened. Progress you could
call it. Maybe it's not progress, depends on where you're
at a position wise with that. But there are two
interviews today. One's going to explain a little bit about
the bargaining and the differences between rank and fire on
the bargaining team. The other one is going to explain

(00:26):
the very important and radical and and progressive access needs
demands that were made. And it seems like ultimately not
at least I'm not on the table in this tentative agreement.
So that's a tentative agreement out for voting right now.
If you have been on the internet today Saturday, and
if you've been on today, you will have seen it
presented as if the strike was over. That's not necessarily

(00:50):
the case, right The contractors up for ratification and it's
ratified by union members who have to vote on it.
A number of people who are organizing for a no vote,
especially people who are in department, saw parts of the
university which would qualify follower tears of pay. The contract
has tiered pay, has tiered pay both geographically and depict
based on what kind of work you're doing. Um So,
a lot of people who are left at the bottom

(01:11):
of those tears are obviously feeling like they've they've been
out of strike for five weeks and haven't got what
they wanted. A lot of people who run those higher
tears are also feeling like they should be expressing solidarity
with their fellow workers at the bottom. But you will
have seen like a lot of reporting. Some of it
came up very very quickly after the after the attentative
agreement was made, which it's odd and perhaps is because

(01:34):
the union appears to be the union staff. I should
say to people who are who are making these some
of the people who are who are in favor of
this contractor using a PR company which appears to have
maybe seeded some stories and some publications, but we can't
be sure. Certainly they were very quick to press. So
I would urge you to listen to this as sort
of a coda to some of what you might be reading.

(01:55):
There are two things. You can listen to them separately.
You can listen one after the other. We won't have
any podcasts for a while over there, open to break,
so I will speak to you again in the new year.
And I hope you enjoyed both these interviews. Mohammed, can
you just explain, first of all, tell folks at which
campus you're at and maybe what you're studying and where
you are in the in the giant structure that is,

(02:17):
like the U A W, U C S D. Yeah. Absolutely,
so I'm at you see San Diego. UM, I'm a
fifth year in the PhD program in the Department of
Ethnic Studies. And yeah, I specifically study like Muslim racialization
and sectarianism in the US UM. And how that, Yeah,
how that looks up to like imperialism, settler colonialism, UM,

(02:40):
gender formations, things like that. UM. And I suppose my
place within this, as you say, like the labyrinth of U, C,
S D, ANU A W politics. UM. Right now, I'm
just a ranking final member UM. However, a couple of
years ago, I was UM the unit chair for San Diego.
So I was actually on the bargaining team previously. UM.

(03:02):
And that was at the beginning of the pandemic UM.
And so a lot of like COVID bargaining, for example, UM,
I sort of like oversaw that and prior to that,
I UM was organizer with the Cola movement and so
I helped organize the wildcat strike. UM great San Diego. Yeah, nice, Yeah, Yeah,

(03:23):
there's a long history of union organizing. It's good. And
so can you explain to folks a little bit about
because you mentioned the bargaining team there, right, and maybe
people wouldn't be familiar with the distinctions in union organization.
Obviously this is in Italy in the nineteen sixties, so
you don't bargain with the entire union on mass e sadly,

(03:44):
but they do. The university meets with a certain group
of union representatives, So can you explain like who they
are and how they're selected to start with? Maybe? Yeah, absolutely, UM.
So there are essentially two levels of three level of
leadership UM within the union. So at the top, in

(04:04):
terms of statewide leadership, you have the Executive Board UM
and that's you know, like president, vice presidents for North
and South campuses UM, trustees, treasurers, things like that UM.
And then you have campus based leadership and that's split
between head stewards that are apportioned to campuses based on

(04:25):
their population in size UM. And then you have to
kind of sort of like head leadership positions, one being
the unit chair and the other being the recording secretary.
And so the bargaining team for the whole union is
composed of the unit chair and the sec from each
campus UM. And at this time around, we've added someone

(04:45):
from you see, San Francisco. They're usually not represented, like
in the past bargaining cycles they haven't been, So there
are now nineteen people on UM, the u W two
eight six five bargaining Team UM, whereas previously there had
been a team UM. Yeah, and I guess that's sort
of like final level of of leadership that combines both
campus level and statewide leadership is what's called the Joint

(05:07):
Council UM. But that's kind of the hierarchy of the
structure of the union. Okay, yeah, it's fascinating they just
went to an odd number because I want to get
onto some think next, which is this division like there's
that I think people are calling them BT ten and
BT nine, right, yeah, which which could a bit b
T nine a b T nine if you if you

(05:27):
didn't have the the UCSF person, which would have been
a whole larger sort of mess. M Yeah, Yeah, that
would have been great. So what is this division? Like
there there are two distinct I guess positions as as
regards bargaining, so preaus you could explain a little bit
of that. Yeah, absolutely, UM, I mean I think just

(05:50):
you know, this might be obvious, but just a preface
with the fact that UM, even within these so called
camps of like b T ten, b T nine, there's
a lot of heterogeneity, right, And so we saw this
voting block emerge in the first week of the strike
mainly around UM the wages demand and how UM you know,
one of the central pieces of that original demand, the

(06:13):
way that it was crafted was that it was aimed
at bringing members out of rent burden and so Rent Burton,
I'm sure folks have talked about this before, but it's
defined as paying more than of your monthly income in rent.
And so that translated in terms of our demand to
a minimum base wage of dollars a year, along with
wage increases that are attacked onto UM, the increase in

(06:36):
like the median rental price UM for for housing and
so uh. In that vote, we saw you know, the
split emerge ten nine, and then we saw UM again,
this kind of split paralleled in the vote to have
open or closed bartning sessions and the fact that ten
people voted to have closed sessions. And again, you know,
since then, another big concession I'm gonna is the term concession,

(07:01):
even though there's a lot of consternation coming from like
u AW leadership, because concession is technically when you lose
something you've already had, you already have. And so when
it comes to like the disability and Access article, UM,
you know, something that we proposed and which you demand,
that was crafted through and by uh, you know, disability
just as activists and disabled workers was mandatory supervisor training

(07:25):
and that was dropped UM. And again we saw that
along the same lines of ten and nine UM. And
so you know, I think ideologically speaking, if I were
to kind of you know, analyze this and give my
my take, it's that the nine people I think are
more committed to UM I suppose being like representative of uh,

(07:50):
their campus concerns. UM. And so, for example, some of
those b T nine members I was on the bargaining
team with a few years ago, and you know, they
and I didn't necessarily agree on a lot of issues UM.
But now because their campuses have been vocally in support
of demands like a cost of living adjustment of COLA

(08:10):
or in support of UM, you know, not dropping the
amount of child care that we can get folks reimbursed for. UM.
You know, actually listening to their membership has caused them
to kind of quinde quote side with UM other bargaining
team members which may have other ideological commitments beyond just
the contract, right, and so commitment to progressively defunding you

(08:32):
see p D right the police department and sort of
putting that those funds elsewhere within the university system. UM.
And so yeah, I mean I think, you know, we
see that kind of split and emerge UM, you know
now with this bargaining cycle. But this is also split
that's existed within the union for a while. And so
you look historically at the contracts cycle, right, UM two

(08:57):
times thousand eleven, and there's always been this kind of division,
and it's red. It's represented in American labor more broadly
between kind of like socio political unionism on one end
and we're like liberal or business unionism on the other.
And so it's not really at least it shouldn't be
surprising to us that a lot of those BT ten
members or a majority of folks on the statewide executive

(09:20):
board are aligned with what's called like the administrative Caucus
at the u a W international level, or they're vocally
supportive of current UW President Ray Curry. And in the
latest general elections UM, even though officially the local didn't
take a stance UM. On social media there's photos of

(09:41):
our union president posing with Ray Curry UM for the
Curry Solidarity Team UM. And so there are those kind
of like larger structural alignments as well. Yeah, and of
course it give people underway and even yeah, but like
you said, within the union as a whole, like yeah,
and within the whole like American unionization, right, we have
the a f l c I O, which includes unions

(10:03):
which are of police officers. And then we have I
know that the UCSD locals of you only so you
see locals I should say of u AW have made
statements about that being an issue, but it's it's still
a thing that's happening. And yeah, it doesn't necessarily and
follow especially in this country, that labor organization is always

(10:27):
progressive in its in its other politics, right, absolutely, Yeah,
I thought it was really cool that a lot of
the demands that were made were progressive when when the
strike began, right like, there was a cops off campus demand,
there was access needs demand and things like that, like

(10:47):
access to child care for people. And some of them
some of them were economics, some of them were not
economics some of them which has always been a thing
with student organizing. Right, we can go back and I'm
not really good at masks. We can get back to
and we can we can look at like students making
political demands and that changing the demands that unions made
in the nineties, And I think it's cool that that

(11:08):
you will have those going in. Where are we at
with the bargaining now? Like it it doesn't look like
comes a leaving campus from what I can see right now, Yeah,
I think. Um So, it's kind of complicated right now
because we've just recently entered voluntary pre impast mediation UM

(11:32):
and so a lot of the big outstanding articles wages, childcare,
the remission of UH nonresident supplemental tuition, which disproportionately affects
international students, right makes some quota postre more costly to
the university. UM So, a lot of those open things
now are being discussed through this mediator UM. And I

(11:53):
think even within that process, UM, we see a lot
of the same issues emerging that have been present for
the entirety of the bargaining processes, which mainly is that UM. Again,
my position on this is that our bargaining team hasn't
been pushing enough UM. And you see that kind of
on two levels. One at the actual table, UM, there's

(12:15):
a lot of passivity and so when you know the
bargaining team is kind of explaining their decision to membership,
it's mainly UM. You know, they're saying things like, well,
we reduced the wages demand by eleven thousand dollars like
right away, because that's what would be more amenable to
the university. And of course that is not true, right
because the u C came back to us with like

(12:37):
a dollar offer or something like that, like PITIFULI low UM.
And so again there's a lot of you know, concessionary
I think moves UM, and there's the desire to to
kind of close the gap with the university essentially, and
again that kind of betrays UM. I think a fundamental
misunderstanding from our bargaining team that some how, if we

(13:00):
are respectable enough, if we present enough rational arguments that
you see will respect that right, they'll they'll sort of
like give in to our demands. UM. That will somehow
goad them to come in our direction. Whereas you know,
we should see that you see as like one of
the largest bosses, one of the largest landlords in the country. UM.
And so of course they're gonna try to scures us

(13:21):
out of as much as they can, because that's their function. UM.
And so on one end, I think we've seen a
lot of core demands get dropped. We've seen um uh
intense like weakening of our position, as well as the
really incredible lack of transparency. UM. And so I mentioned

(13:42):
before the fact that most bargaining meetings or most bargaining
sessions have been closed doors. UM, the fact that a
number of like private like sidebars have taken place, and
oftentimes membership gets like very vague emails or were or
we're you know told like oh, progress was made, you know,
we want certain things, but then the technicality of those

(14:04):
wins is completely left out of the picture. UM. Even
more recently, bargaining team members voted to uh make the
votes at the table private, and so after dropping the
coal to demand. You know, folks were upset and obviously
reaching out to the bargaining team, showing up to caucuses
and being upset, and so from there, the bargaining team

(14:25):
framed this as quote court harassment and essentially voted to
make all the votes private UM. And so you know,
we've seen a lot of moves like that that, you know,
make it clear that the union leadership is trying to
preserve the union rather than preserve its membership right in
prisoner of the well being of those folks. And so
I think at the table again we see this kind

(14:46):
of passive or concessionaire UM strategy. And on the ground,
when it comes to the strikes at all these campuses,
we see something similar where you know, the majority of
the action is that we took in the first two
to three weeks of the strike was just picketing, right,
And obviously, you know, the picket is a powerful tool.

(15:08):
The picket is a very symbolic tool. But in a
industry like the Academy, picketing doesn't serve the same purpose
as it might like at a factory, right, we're not
actually shutting down the workplace. It's a great show of
force in a way because you have thousands of people out.
But obviously, when we're being required to sign up for
twenty hours of picketing to get our strike pay, folks

(15:28):
get exhausted. We will have you know, like huge marches
through campus, go to a rally and it will be
two hours of people talking UM, and that exhaust people.
And even when it comes to you know, like ec
Davis they had the undergrads actually had like an amazing
direct action where they blockaded the campus every single day. UM,

(15:48):
and that of course led to a legal response from
the university and the union leadership, you know, rather than
challenge that or you know, take take measures to make
sure that those could organize autonomously of them UM started uh,
like harassing and discipline folks basically UM for taking taking

(16:10):
part in solidarity actions that may push up against the law. UM.
And so what we see as like a concessionary attitude
at the table, I think is translated as a very
or is translated into like respectability politics UM on the ground. UM. Yeah, yeah, No,
I think that's an extent way of phrasing it. And

(16:30):
that's that's sort of what what you're definitely suggesting and
what it seems that we've seen. So when does that
leave people? And I think some of the things that
have been suggested to be like in in the sort
of current proposals both from the Union the university would
leave people with a contract that they would find I'm

(16:51):
guessing unsatisfactory, right, especially after for four and a half
five weeks of being out of and and possible withholding
of pay right which we can get onto. But where
does that leave people? Like? What what sort of feeling
amongst your Obviously you can't speak for the rank of
five across the whole university, but what was the sort

(17:12):
of feeling amongst the rank and file with regards to
what do we do if we get this offer which
doesn't give us the things that we went out for
in the first place. Yeah, Um, I think that there
is a lot of just polarization around that question. Um.
I've heard from a number of folks. Unsurprisingly. I think

(17:32):
people who UM are material at least treated a little
bit better. Right, we get higher pay already um from
the university being all right with it, you know. But
that's that's the most that I hear. I haven't heard anyone,
even the most staunch supporter of the union establishment say
that this contractor at least what is bound to come
to the table at this point is going to be satisfactory,

(17:55):
is going to actually be desirable. It's just seen as like, oh,
this is the best we can get, and we might
as well settle in like every sense of the word. UM.
But that being said, there is a large contingent again
of folks that are totally fine with that, or they're
tired of striking, or they're seeing a lot of retaliation
from their supervisors, and the union I think has failed

(18:16):
to um not only respond to that retaliation and to
like reensure and empower members, but it's also failed to
you know, the technical term and organizing would be innoculate, right. UM.
There is a huge, in my opinion, organizational failure to
make clear exactly what could happen to folks when we
go on strike, or to prepare us to hear the

(18:36):
talking points from the university UM and how to you know,
collectively organize against it, to build up a kind of
consciousness to resist internalizing that and to say like, oh,
I don't want to strike because my jobs at risk
or something, and it's like yeah, of course, right, that's
the point, you know, it's like where we're taking that
action UM, and so on one end, right, I mean,
there's a number of reasons to why, and the kind

(18:58):
of hinted at that, but there is a large content
of of people who UM would just be okay and
they're going to vote yess UM. But I also think
right and as I'm sure you know you've you've seen
around social media or you've talked to other folks who
are on this side of voting no UM. You know,
I think a lot of the consternation there comes again
from the fact that we've dropped so much UM and

(19:22):
kind of have left our most vulnerable members out to
drive UM. So whether that comes from you know, reducing
the amount of childcare or dependent health care or UM
you know again dropping those like really core elements of
the disability and access needs UM articles. When it comes
to dropping COLA and dropping our wages down to a

(19:43):
point where we would still be in not just rent burden,
but severe rent burden. UM, it's been leading a lot
of folks to uh, you know, promote the idea that
we're going to vote not UM regardless, because even if
the remaining articles you know, are better than we expected UM,
and they get tentatively agreed to. There's already too much
that's been lost to make this UH an adequate contract, right,

(20:05):
not even great, not even satisfactory, but just adequate. UM.
And so you know, of course that kind of UH division,
as you might say, UM, has brought up a lot
of tensions, especially in the last few days. UM. But
you know, I think now we're seeing a broader gap
between these two like sides UM, where there are folks

(20:28):
that are pretty much again set on voting yes because
it's good enough UM, and there are other folks who
are pretty staunching in voting now and trying to build
up that movement UM. And I think the point we're
at now, at least speaking from that like vote no side,
is that UM, we really need to outline and be

(20:48):
transparent with membership where we can go from there, like
how do we demystify the process or the process the
possibility of impasse UM. You know, that's been a concept
that's around a lot by union leadership, and it's never
fully unpacked UM. And so it's like a fearmongering tool
that's that's been in my opinion at least like used

(21:10):
to subdue member militancy. Um, so that's one issue. Another
issue is like how do we reopen certain articles, how
do we build this quote unquote long haul strike to
gain more than we've already you know, um given up
at this point. And so I think a lot of
those technicalities that are up in the air are renewed,

(21:31):
sort of like areas of organizing focus. Um. Yeah, so
you don't have to abandon some of those demands which
we're not economic link. Yeah, that can still be Yeah,
I mean, I guess there's only point in really speculating
how many people will vote yes or no. We'll see
once we see the agreement. And yeah, but like can
you give us an update then on where striking get

(21:53):
some see progressively? How did it get longer? Right? People
don't want to stand on a picket for five weeks,
six weeks. They don't they want to go home in
the holidays. Um. They have this pressure that's been leveraged,
perhaps unfairly and sometimes like erroneously, that their students will
face immigration or graduation consequences, which is largely untrue. So like,

(22:18):
can you talk about there's there's a chance that people
won't be getting paid right in December? Has that happened
to anyone. What's the latest with that? UM. SO, A
lot of what's been going around UM in terms of
issues with pay. A lot of the news I've seen
concerns post docs, so folks from the local who actually

(22:40):
just signed an approse that tenant of agreement. UM. So
the university has put out some language implying that they'll
retroactively doc paid UM and so. UM. Yeah, I can't
like speak to the technicalities of that, UM, but that's
definitely a concern I've seen floating around UM. And I
know that they're actively organizing around it. UM for a

(23:01):
s c S and UH student researchers. UM, we none
of us have been docked pay yet. UM. We all
got paid for December. UM, in part because I just
think the university has a really hard time keeping track
of who's on strike. On top of the fact that,
I mean, I don't know if anyone's already complained to
you about you see path, but the parallel system that

(23:21):
got rolled out yeah a few years ago. UM, it's terrible.
It's an absolutely fucking nightmare. Yeah. UM, and so I
think it would be a massive achievement for them to
even be able to withhold. Folks pay through that system. Yeah,
the struggled to pay people in the past, including myself.
Yeah yeah, um yeah absolutely, and so um, you know,

(23:42):
I think it is it is a real concern. But
at this point, um, at least to my knowledge, no
one in or s r U has been affected by
by pay with holding. And then let's talk about the

(24:04):
grade withholding, which is now that today is today right?
That the grades should we do in Obviously many people
are not filing those grades and which again it's another
example of the UC just being a bureaucratic disaster, but
we can skip past that. So the grades are not
being being filed. Can we talk about some of the
suggestions that have been made by the university. I know

(24:25):
one of them was that students on like F one
visas might face consequences. That's not true, as best having
been on that form visas, best to understand it, and
that students on on a grant and scholarships might face consequences.
Can you explain sort of what they've said, and then
perhaps PREPS office some insight into too, why you think

(24:46):
that that might be misleading? Yeah? Absolutely, Um, so exactly
what you're saying. Um, you know, folks and vulnerable categories
such as people on academic probation or whose financial aid
is dependent on being in like you know, good standing
UM or yeah, like international students. UM. Yeah. There's been
a lot of uh fairmongering and misleading information out there

(25:07):
that these students might be you know, kicked out of school,
they might be reported, they might um face uh you
know again like financial consequences. UM. But it's important also
to recognize that, uh, having a grade remain blank, it
doesn't affect folks g p A. It doesn't have folks
affect folks academic standing. UM. And for international students, UM.

(25:31):
You know the best that we understand, and we've actually
communicated with universities international students offices, and what they say
is that, um, it's enrollment that matters, not necessarily having
the grade. And so UM, even if you know, let's
say like all of someone's grades are withheld, they've still
enrolled in the requisite number of credits UM, and so

(25:53):
that that standing in terms of a visa wouldn't be affected. UM.
And the same goes for even something as simple as
moving onto the next course in a sequence. UM, because uh,
you know, again, the withholding of a grade doesn't affect
UM that kind of like progress or academic standard. UM.
And as a technical note, a lot of folks are

(26:14):
again I'm concerned that like, well, wouldn't this blank grade
lead to an incomplete or wouldn't it lead to an
F UM And in terms of the incomplete, there's a
reason why we're not filing everyone with an eye. We're
leaving the grades blink because an incomplete is costly, it's
more work for everyone, and so we're avoiding that. And UM,

(26:35):
blank grades don't default to an F until the following
semester or following term ends. And so for us at
UCSD UM, since many of us are withholding grades, they
those blank grades wouldn't turn into an F until the
end of winter, so around March. And I don't think
anyone expects to strike to go that one. Yeah, it
would be truly historic. And yes, so how has he

(26:59):
had to at your response being then yeah, that's UM,
it's difficult because I know at certain campuses, like I
mentioned you see Davis earlier, there's been huge undergrad involvement there. UM.
At San Diego, I think the response has been a
bit mixed. UM. I know many of my students. For example,

(27:20):
we're supportive of the strike UM, and within you know,
my department Ethnic Studies, we did try to get students
more involved, Like we held teachings UM to get students
to come out. And you know, the class that I'm
teeing for right now is called Land and Labor, and
so we talked about you know, U C s D
right and the relationship to like colonialism, capitalism, landed labor UM.

(27:42):
And so we've tried to integrate you know, not just UM,
you know, student and engagement and support, but also to
use this as another form of study, right, as a
form of study that's not that's outside the kind of
like bureacratic mess that is the university with its nonsense UM.
I think what's difficult at San Diego is that, UM,

(28:06):
you know, political engagement has historically come in waves. Obviously
at all universities. Folks come and go, but it's particularly acute,
I think at San Diego where there's massive moments of
like upheaval and like folks coming out in the thousands,
like we saw back in UM around the pandemic, around
the uprisings UM during the summer, around even the Cola

(28:30):
movement right, which was a little bit before that. We
saw huge numbers of undergrads come out, in part because
we were able back then at least to connect our
demands to their concerns. Right. The fact that psychological services
on campus are horribly underfunded, Right, people have to wait
a whole quarter to get even the intake of planet um.
The fact that again, like they're getting screwed over with

(28:50):
housing just as much as we are UM paying you know,
over ten or fifteen thousand dollars a year in it
for a dorm um. And so you know, that connection
back then, I think, really drew out the undergrads, and
that's what's really lacking now. Again, I think because of
the way that the union has framed the struggle quite

(29:11):
narrowly as not just what affects workers, but what what
affects the majority of workers UM, that's left out a
lot of the broader concerns. That has foreclosed a lot
of broader critiques of the university. And so when it
comes to something like the cops off campus demand, the
fact that we have bargain team members at u c
l A for example, literally lie and say that it's

(29:31):
never been on the table. UM it's really indicative of
how the union is trying to frame this. And so
the fact that you know, again those broader conversations around
the UC being a landlord around the UM one way
that you know, profit and resources are um inequitably distributed
through the university infrastructure, right, those things drop out of

(29:55):
the conversation about our strike UM and if we do
bring it up, we're seen as dissidents or something like that,
or radical UM. And so the fact that those things
have dropped out, I think has led to us seeing
the situation like we see at UCSD where the undergrads
are almost ambivalent, if not hostile, because we haven't done

(30:17):
a good enough job engaging them. We haven't also organized
alongside and with them UM. Rather it's been like come
support your t A S and not like we're fighting together, right,
And so it's yeah, it betrayed. It gives the impression
that this is like a very one way UM or
you know, like an interdirectional form of support, where in reality,

(30:38):
you know, we should be building up those ties of
solidarity and that you know, we should be focusing not
just on winning a contract, but then building and sustaining
this movement against the university in a much larger or
broader sense. Yeah, because it's speaking from experience. I know
a lot of those undergrads feel very disempowered in their
relations with the university and and some of the demands,

(31:00):
like the access needs demand, you know, the demand for
improved student counseling and psychological services, things like that that
would benefit directly everyone on campus. And then it's a
shame not to see that. It's a shame to see
that sort of left to the side when I think
it could build a more effective movement. So, yeah, it

(31:20):
does seem to go, like you said, campus by campus department.
Your your department like has historically been a lot more
engaged than others. I think it's fair to say so.
And so we've reached the Christmas break now great have
been withheld. I think a lot of people thought was
like sort of a nuclear option or like a step up,

(31:42):
which he doesn't seem to have been, Like, it really
hasn't done anything, and the UC has entered into the
university and the union have entered into a voluntary pre
impassed mediation. When do you, like, if you were just speculating,
and when do you think we'll see like a resolution
because it's already slipped out of coverage, right, like if

(32:04):
I look at our local newspaper, that they've stopped reporting
on it, which doesn't help absolutely. Yeah, um, I think
you know, it's it's difficult to speculate in part because
as we've seen with past bargaining updates, they tend to
drop bombshells on us, um, Like with the whole coal

(32:25):
of demands being you know, severely cut down. We found
about We found out about that like two hours before
the bargaining ste which is aut like ten pm. And
so it's totally possible by like that by the end
of this week we'll have a tentative agreement, like you know,
folks have been speculating on that. It wouldn't surprise me.
I would be disappointed, but I wouldn't be surprised. Um.

(32:47):
At the same time, though, I I do think that
we've been able to build up sufficient pressure on the
union establishment or the leadership um that I think there
it might be a bit more asitant right to take
that sudden of a move or to kind of come
out of left field or something like that. Um. And
so you know, there is a distinct possibility, especially with

(33:10):
the holidays coming up, that this might go into the
new year. UM, and obviously that would be like my
hope to go as long as possible, yea, UM. But yeah,
I think it's it's incredibly tough, and I think that's
causing a lot of anxiety UM. And that's kind of
a disorganizing energy, right to not know when something like
this might happen, because there is such an utter lack

(33:32):
of communication or um, you know, democratic input UM. And
I think in terms of you know, the the coverage
or the great strike, UM, what's really unfortunate, I think
is the way that I've heard, you know, from the
horse's mouth, right certain barning team members saying that withholding

(33:53):
grades isn't an important form or isn't an impactful form
of of labor withholding because the university doesn't care. And
historically we've seen that they really do care, and within
academic strikes, with holding finals is a massive thing, right.
And I think that in order to really um realized
the impact that will have on the institution, we have

(34:14):
to go for a few more weeks into the winter
quarter um. And you know, right now even to try
to um build up some more UM. I guess, like
you know, pr around great withholding UM. There are folks
doing research and trying to calculate like quantify um what
like you know, each credit would mean in like real dollars.

(34:34):
And then the fact that you know, hundreds of students
grades are being withheld for a three or four hour
like three or four credit UM class and what that
translates to into money UM And so yeah, yeah, I
mean if we look at what the university does, right,
it turns its capital into into into income essentially through
like leveraging its credibility for credential and charging people masses

(34:57):
of rent for living there increasingly. And you can't take
away the housing, right, which is it's made you so
surviving you but you can't take away this this this product.
Yeah and and and there have been um you know,
there are a number of petitions out there, for example,
um UH for undergrads to request like a reimbursement of

(35:18):
their tuition for any classes that haven't been held or
grades that have been withheld UM. And I think that's
a really fantastic way to engage them and to put
pressure on the university. There's also been UM attempts or
at least you know, um, some strategizing on on our
end on how to uh have the grade strike impact

(35:39):
the university's accreditation um, And so we are trying to
look for avenues to increase the pressure from this kind
of like strategic move Yeah that's smart. Yeah, yeah, it
must be difficult. I'm sure, Like is you develop relationships
with undergraduate and especially when you're teaing in your department
of class you care about eight it's a shame to

(36:00):
to lose that opportunity to talk to people about important
things like landed labor. And so I'm sure it's difficult
to not have that chance to even check in at
the end of the end of the term and just say, like,
you know, this has been fun. What have we learned? Yeah? Absolutely, um,
And I think you know, for a lot of us
who are a s c S, you know, we're doing
this not just for ourselves but for our students, right

(36:22):
because we care about education. We recognize that the university
as an institution is actually corrosive right to a quality education.
And so absolutely, I think like there is a sense
of loss. I think the fact that I can't, like
you're saying, close out my class, the fact that I
can't um, you know, really invest in my students the
way I want and not trying to blame that on

(36:43):
the strike, but trying to blame that on the conditions
that have brought us to strike in the first police right, Yeah, yeah,
I don't want to get like full Marxists on main
but like, yeah, the further alien a ted you are
from your labor, then the the less that the experience
is for your undergraduate and and that is definitely a
thing that happens at the university. You become more and
more inlalienated and oh yes, yes, the joy dies ye

(37:11):
I say, with the PhD in doing the work in
academia and Mohammed, is there anything else people should know
about the strike like that we haven't talked about mm
hmm see Um I I would say, you know, one
one important thing is that both for folks within the

(37:32):
university system and from you know, the outside, is to
kind of place this strike in historic context. Um. I
think when the union leadership has spoken about this at all,
it's mainly around the size of the strike, the fact
that it's it's historic because we have you know, forty
eight thousand possible strikers from throughout the u c S.

(37:53):
And that's kind of misleading because I think the real
kind of like historic potential within the struggle is UM.
For example, establishing a precedent of what a researcher strike
looks like. Part of the reason it's so difficult for
us to not only you know, mobilize researchers, but also
you know, UM push back at against retaliation is because

(38:16):
there is no set structure for what that kind of
strip looks like, right, UM, there is no effective way
that we have to UM counter the possible impacts on
these people's futures UM. And so I think that you know,
really emphasizing that to folks is UM is key. Another
thing is UM the cola demand. Right the fact that
we are trying to or at least we've tried to

(38:38):
tack UM our wage increases not just to UM inflation
or the consumer price index, but to the median increase
in rental prices UM. That would be huge. And that's
not just big for us as as workers within this
local but that does set the precedent for all workers
in the US. And I think that you know, we

(39:00):
really by we, I mean like the union as a
whole apparatus has not stressed the importance of that or
the kind of like monumental shift that I could um
kind of provoke in the landscape of American labor broadly,
just so if people aren't aware, like, like, rent in
California has gone up a way more than double, almost

(39:20):
almost triple the rate of inflation and working people people
who are members of unions by a large tend to
be people who don't own property, but they tend to
be people who rent property, right, And I can see
by your your unfinished concrete ceiling that you're you're renting
from the UC, which is the biggest landlord in California.
So like you're right that this is a very historic thing.

(39:41):
Is that rent increase for Cola. Is that tried to
median rent in the state or is it median rent
across you see rented like like apartments. So I think
the actual language so this is part of the problem
is that because it was dropped so quickly at the table,

(40:02):
we weren't even even able to get into the vicissitudes
of the demand itself. UM And so from my understanding,
the increase would be based on um the like least
affordable or essentially the largest increase that will see at
any of the campuses, and everyone's wage would be increased

(40:22):
to that when we look at the base wage k
UM that was tacked onto again a kind of like
median income or a median rental price throughout the state
as well. And so actually fifty four k would be
exactly enough to get me out of rent Burton. So
anything less than that would actually still keep me in
rent bourdon Um. And so yeah, that's kind of how Yeah,

(40:45):
which rent bedon is is far too normal to think,
especially in California. Yeah. Yeah, and the connective bargaining is
tenants as well as workers is fascinating, right, Like it's
something we've seen, but not in a large scale like
and and like you on rent strike yet but yes,
and as as a side note, yeah, um, we did

(41:06):
have a couple of rent strikes in UH within ThEC
system in the past few years at Berkeley at u
C l A and here UM. And so I was
actually part of organizing UM in the aftermath of COLA.
At the beginning of the pandemic. UM I helped organize
the first rent strike UM within h D h U
C S D grat House UM. And so we have
we have also seen that. But that's another way that

(41:27):
the union has kind of limited the scope of this movement.
Because there's been so much focus on us as only
workers and the bread and butter issues, we kind of
lose sight of the way that withholding rent, as you're saying,
is another way of like really getting at the heart
of the u c S profit engine. Yeah, yeah, and yes,
it is a shame that these like Yeah, if you

(41:48):
want to think the historical perspective, of course, like a Paris,
it's like the monolith of student political organizing, I guess,
and student political organizing changeing beast apply structures of the left,
which which is it's some of what you had demanded
was very similar to that in a sense, and that
it was societal and political as much as it wasn't economic, right,

(42:12):
and American unions tend to phrase themselves in terms of
respectable liberal politics, not that. So it's a shame to
see that. Go. I guess absolutely, and I think you know,
this actually came up in a in a meeting um,
which kind of astounded me, but again didn't on one
hand astounded me, another hand was completely sort of to
be expected, which is someone saying we need to make

(42:34):
this movement UM as accessible as possible to workers without
an activist bone in their body. UM. And so again
there's always that appeal to the right, always the appeal
to the most conservative reactionary force, and always at the
expense right of the folks who are the most vulnerable,
always at the expense of expanding this movement. And so
as you're saying something that is more socio and socially

(42:58):
and politically engaged. Yeah, I think most people come activist
when they have to live in their car because they
can't afford to live in the UC housing when they
work at the EUC. But that is not everyone, of course.
And all right Mohammed, where can people find you? Do
you have social media? Do you, as I said, you
want to share with you prefer to share like your
unions or um something else I guess on on Twitter? Um,

(43:23):
I am at a Slamo Marxist UM and so yeah, yeah,
so folks can find me there. UM. Otherwise, I mean,
if there are folks within the u se um that
are organizing UM, within any of the like vote no channels,
I'm sure folks could find their way to meet UM. Yeah.
I think just in general like following the Rank and

(43:43):
File and COLA associated accounts on on social media. Trying
to attend as many meanings as possible is is really
how I think folks can get more in tune with
with the struggle. Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much
for your time. I appreciate it. Yeah, best of luck
with everything. Thanks so much. So. I'm joined today by

(44:14):
Megan Lynch, who's the founder of and a volunteer for
U See Access Now, which has been one of the
important bodies lobbying for increased access needs for people with
disabilities at that you see as part of this strike.
Hi Megan, how are you doing. Hi? I'm doing well.
How about Thanks for having me great, Thanks Faith, Thanks
for coming on. Megan. Can you explain and maybe explain

(44:37):
a little bit about you see Access Now first and
then we can get into sort of what the issues
were and what the demands were. Well, let me start
with clarifying what access needs are. Generally, I wouldn't want
to I want to. I wouldn't want to have more
access needs because it would mean that I need more
things that I need to negotiate getting them met. So
an access need is, uh, I have some thing that

(45:01):
I need somebody to to you know, the inaccessible environment
that we have often it's it's sort of default inaccessibility,
and so having an access needs means that you know,
I need to work out how to be in that environment.
And sometimes you can even be in a really well
accessible environment, and uh, it would be hard for people

(45:24):
to meet your access needed without again trying to come
to some kind of agreement. So there's a difference between
accessibility and access needs. And I just wanted to clarify that.
I thank you. I think that's very important. And so
can you explain then what what sort of issues people
were running into before the strike, like what what sort
of things where they're that limited people's access to university

(45:46):
spaces or education or work. Well, still very much going on,
and in fact it's actually increased during the pandemic. Um
the only time where things got a little better for
some of us was, uh, you know in March when
everybody you know, and this is what often happens, is
that something when suddenly people who don't identify as disabled

(46:08):
needs something, and there's enough of that, then there's there's
no problem. Nobody has to submit medical documentation, nobody has
to get special permission. It's really not a big rigmarole, right,
but uh, when you identify as disabled and you say
I have this as an access need, then suddenly, you know,
you get you get the Spanish inquisition in terms of
whether you you you deserve this thing that your tax

(46:31):
dollars have been paying for at your institution anyway. So, um,
it really runs the gamut for you know. I guess
what I could best talk about is my own situation
and uh what led to the formation of e C
Access Now. So, um, I arrived here before the start
of fall as a fifty year old disabled grad students.

(46:55):
So I'm already in a kind of unusual position by
being fifty or four years old here than disabled on
top of it, And uh, I was set to t
a my first quarter here. And I could spot even
before the quarters started that the kinds of cycle recks
they have here at UC Davis, which is, you know,
usually lauded for being quote unquote bike friendly, Uh, we're

(47:19):
not accessible to me, and that they would eventually you know,
I could do it once or twice without hurting myself,
but over time I was gonna be hurt and that
would get in the way of me being able to
do my duties as a t a not to mention
anything I need to do for myself, because I was writing,
like a lot of disabled cyclists, I don't ride the

(47:40):
standard upright bicycle. I ride a recumbent bicycle with underseat steering,
and the recks are not usually a big deal. Places
I've lived in a number of different cities in California, Berkeley,
Los Angeles see a lot of places have what are
you know you racks? You know it, which is similar
kind of is Sheffield rack for foes folks who know those,

(48:02):
except you know, not quite as big. So it's not
like it's this special you know you don't go to
a special adaptive store for this rack. It is a
more accessible rack, and most cities are sensibly using them,
but for here, because despite their bike friendly reputation, they
actually want to prioritize space for cars. They have made
these racks that are so close together and not supportive, etcetera,

(48:26):
that the only part I could ever lock my bike
too would be the ends, and that's what everybody else
wants to take first um And it wouldn't even be
easy to the ends because again, these are really very
specifically they have wheel wells, and the relationship between the
locker thing and the wheel well is exactly the space

(48:46):
a part you would do if you had sort of
a standard adult size upright bike. And honestly, they're not
even good for people who ride those. So, for instance,
if you go and you see Davis subreddit, you will
see sometimes threads where people are bullying people who want
to get a cruiser bike because they're like, those things
take up too much room. No, it's not that they

(49:07):
didn't take up too much room. It's that the racks
are very poorly designed. There are things CIEs, but they
are SUVs. Yeah. They rather they would rather bully somebody
about their choice of bike than to say, hey, these
are really what a waste of taxpayer money to get
these these bike racks that not only don't work for
a lot of disabled people, but don't even work for

(49:29):
people who are riding cargo bikes or using a trailer
or you know other things you would want to do.
So so anyway, I went first to the Disabled Students
Center here, which is you know, the rationing and policing
agency for disabled people. And you know, it's amazing to
me like this, these are the people and they would

(49:50):
literally call themselves experts on disability and accessibility, and they
said to me, gosh, it never occurred to us that
that would need to be accessible. This is on a
campus where they're trying to encourage you to leave your
car at home at least some of us, right and uh,
and it's also how you get to school and to work, right,

(50:12):
So why wouldn't I need that to be accessible? And
so they I asked for something as simple as can
you sign a letter? They wouldn't do it, you know,
can you said? They wouldn't. They wouldn't back me up
at all. So then I go directly to the Transportation
of Parking Services. They were like, it's not covered under
a d A, which is not true, and you know,
and then they were like the solution they wanted to

(50:34):
pose with it. You know. Eventually, when I finally after months,
got a meeting, they were like, well, give us your
schedule of classes and will install one of these racks
at each building you're at. As if my schedule isn't
going to change each quarter, is that a better use
of Yeah? Is that a better use of tax money?
To send a crew around to like to to to

(50:54):
Jackhamber Concrete at a different location for each quarter. According
to each disabled cyclist class us changes just get the
right rack. So that that's when I went to the union,
and even in the Union at that time, you know,
it was really clear it wasn't just with that issue.
I had other issues, but this was definitely getting in

(51:15):
the way of my work as a t a because
it was hurting my hands very badly, and in fact
I had fallen a couple of times and my bike
had fallen on top of me, and like nobody helps you.
You just sit there watching you like a turtle, trying
to you don't get So there's things like that. There's
things like um, even just the housing here in terms

(51:35):
of for instance, if I had had the luck of
having a romantic partner, if I'd had the wealth and
the ability to choose to have children, I would have
been able to get grad housing. But as a disabled
person who has an access need to be close to campus,
I was I had zero priority whatsoever, and so I
very nearly ended up starting that quarter having to live

(51:57):
out of my car because you know, and I would
think it would be pretty clear that a fifty four
year old disabled grad student might actually have, uh maybe
have more have fewer options in housing than somebody who's
in their twenties and isn't disabled. But but you know,
and I'm not saying that parents don't need family housing

(52:18):
or anything like that, but what I'm saying is very clearly,
I think some disabled people do have strong access needs
to have accessible housing near campus. And that's very much
not something that they bothered themselves with here at UC Davis.
So you know, there's other things in terms of online
accessibility and other things, but that those are the things

(52:40):
that that affected me that I think are worth mentioning
simply because they they're both unusual things people don't tend
to think of, right, yeah, yeah, And it is a
very uh, it's a very difficult system to navigate. Like
like you said, I think one of the things that's
already stood out is this this demand for like documentation, freddy,
any sort of accommodation that you might need that they

(53:01):
can make it very hard to remember in um, I
was teaching at UCSD and I shattered my pelvis, uh
and like that made moving at all extremely difficult for me,
and they wouldn't give me a parking pass, and like
then then proceeded to offer me once the diabetes, which
is a whole like like interesting, like it's sort of

(53:23):
calculation of which one of those things will definitely stop
you walking. So yeah, and it was extremely sort of humiliating,
I guess from a personal perspective, and degrading and time
consuming and unnecessary. And so what were the demands then?
At the start of this strike, right, there was an
access needs element to the demands being made by the union.

(53:45):
So perhaps we can go through Maybe first we can
go through how you went from uh like this bike
rrect which didn't accommodate, but pretty pretty basic need right
to transport yourself to campus? How do we get from
there to the union having access needs to minds as
part of the strike. So as far as you see

(54:07):
access now, it's involvement with it. Um. We went on
Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and published the demandifesto in
July of so, uh, the months between you know, the fall,
when I made you know, went through these processes and
when I finally decided, Okay, nobody's doing anything about this
and I don't see any other organizations, so let's you know,

(54:29):
jump into this um. By July, Uh, you see access
now was contacted by somebody who was an officer within
u a W fift ten and that's the post Doc
and and Academic Researcher Union, and they had seen our work,

(54:51):
you know, via social media and whatnot, and said, you know,
we're about to go into contract bargaining and we'd really
like to talk about disability shoes. So we had a
meeting with them, and we actually had we did a
presentation also to them, uh for their social justice and
in our series. But we also had a meeting with
a number of people from fifty ten in terms of let's,

(55:15):
you know, let's think creatively here. Let's let's be ambitious
about what it is, you know, because the thing is
is that a lot of what people tend to do,
particularly particularly when they're not disabled, but even some disabled
people can do this because internalized able is M is
really hard to throw off. We're sort of you know,
and this is true of other oppressions too. You know,

(55:35):
we're all sort of used to this system that has
this policing, austerity, etcetera. You know, we all get schooled
into not hoping for much anymore because we're just so used,
you know, in my life time I've lived through decades
of this kind of regularite bologne, so so it takes
a while to think big about these things. But that's

(55:56):
what we were trying to do. And so we sort
of brainstormed with them a several see access Now members
and several fifty eight ten members in terms of the
sorts of things that could be uh asking for And
so if if there's time and you don't mind, I
can give you a view of that because the other
stuff is online. But this isn't. So again this is

(56:20):
sort of just a spitballing document, but we were like,
you know, all ads for post doc positions on all platforms,
they have to be accessible. Now, some some of this
and some of what we're talking about is stuff that
you see is actually legally obligated to do and just
has not been doing. Um that would be one of them.
UM training. You know, most emergency access plans are not

(56:41):
made with the input of disabled people, and they don't
even mention us. So you know, there are considerations for
accessibility for different types of disabilities, different people. Uh. We
have several buildings on UC Davis campus here that have
little placards right in the lobby. Let's say they say
something like, if you depend on uh, visual alarm systems

(57:05):
in an emergency, please let somebody else know you're in
this building, blah blah blah. And it's like even the
way that's phrased because you know, quote unquote abled people,
are you dependent on a sound alarm system to get
out in a fire. But they but they don't phrase it,
you know, as dependence when it's for them, right, They
only phrase it as dependence when it's for somebody who's

(57:27):
death or hard of hearing. So we've got several buildings
on campus where they know that it's not up, it's
not up to even not even just a d A.
But just like basic human decency, people will die in
that building. Deaf and hard of hearing people will not
know that there's a fire or another emergency alarm system
going off because we couldn't be bothered to pony up

(57:47):
for some lights. Um. So that that kind of thing.
In terms of an emergency action plan, these things have
to be done. There has to be training, not only
for the supervisors but really for you see itself, because
the whole system it's just you know, cram full of
able is um. You know, online working is key to accessibility.
So it has to be a regular option, not just

(58:08):
something for the pandemic. It should have been the whole time,
and it also shouldn't you know, be a big burst
up to it. There are some and you know, they're
like quite kind of things you would think of as
smaller that we put in here simply because again we're
trying to think creatively, which is you know, reimbursements for instance.

(58:28):
I mean that's a general problem with grad students and whatnot.
Is that the university, which has far more resources than
we do, it's sort of you know, taking its time
reimbursing us for things that we've had to get right.
And so the debt is actually being heaped onto the
people least able to support it. And when it comes
to disabled people, that is going to be even more

(58:49):
of a burden because most disabled people have a higher
cost of living and often have a lower income to boot.
So we put you know that in there, we put
in reimbursed. It's for costs incurred working at home or
or or you know, in other ways remotely for an employer.
That's section to eight oh two of the California Labor Code.
Um uh, you know, sick policy in terms of like

(59:14):
commuter checks, which you know, or some other kind of
thing for public transit. Make the child care spaces and
lactation rooms are accessible because you know the union will
like lobby for that right, but you need to be
you need to be express about the idea that these
things need to be accessible. Like people don't think of
everything needed to be accessible, but really it does. Yeah,

(59:37):
and that sends a very sort of condescending message about
like what you know, different people with different diffabilities might
or might not be doing at which obviously isn't great
that the US doing that, And so like, I really
I thought these demands were fascinating because it's not what
we often talk about when we talk about strikes, Like

(59:58):
we talk about strikes often purely in terms of economics,
right like uh in in the US that can include
things like non way to benefits right like healthcare. But
it in sort of most instances we talk about strikeing
bread and butter terms like they have gone out and
they want this much money to come back. And I
think that strikes have the potential to build much greater

(01:00:20):
solidarity by doing things like this, by incorporating these I
guess social justice demands is one way of phrasing it.
The basic human decency to minds will be another way
of saying it. And it really yeah, it really impressed
me that that this this was part of the package
of demands from the union. How have things gone? Are

(01:00:44):
you comfortable talking about how things have gone since the
strike began? Well, I certainly don't know everything backwards and forwards,
because honestly, it would be hard for any one person
to do it all. It's all extremely complex stuff in
terms of not in terms of you know, things on
the ground, but in terms of the language in contracts

(01:01:05):
and the process and bargaining. Uh there's a difference between
like things that are tradition traditional to do as opposed
to things that are actually the law, and then of
course the actual enforcement and law. So anyway, this has
been going on for a whole year, and as you
can imagine, like penetrating it as your average person, it
can be very difficult. So I will certainly give you, you
you know, my view of it as so far as

(01:01:25):
I've seen it, but um, we do have uh. So
so we helped with like sort of spitballing, and they
took it from there and what they started out with
was not as you know, ambitious as the spitball document. Um.
I think it tends. I think that got replicated a

(01:01:47):
lot throughout the unions, which is, you know, my advice
as somebody from the outside, just thinking about negotiations in general. Okay,
you know they're going to cut you down, right, so
why would you be the one to cut you down?
You know they're gonna do it, right, you think big
let them cut you down. And and unfortunately there were

(01:02:08):
the majority voices in the bargaining teams tended often to
be at least where the access needs articles were concerned, um,
tended to be kind of let us cut ourselves down. Uh.
So the starting doc for ten, although you know it's
still had things in it that were very like if
we have the original version of ten instead of what

(01:02:31):
actually the folks you know, voted on voted yes on recently, Uh,
it would still be a revolutionary document in in US
labor history. I think. You know, I don't I've never
heard in the news of anything any uh more ambitious
than that. But but definitely it was down from what

(01:02:52):
we were starting with, which you know, um so. But
I think what happened was that you know, fifty ten
came out and they were trying to coordinate and learn
from each other to different units. Right, So then folks
on s R, you and U A W also UH

(01:03:17):
worked on the access needs articles and and the access
needs articles even in themselves was a change because the
previous versions of these things were phrases reasonable, accommodations who,
which is language that stems from the Americans with Disabilities Act.
And even that phrase is something that is really outdated
because it is the idea, the ideas who is deciding

(01:03:41):
what's reasonable? Right, the person who has no lived experience
of disability or this gigantic public institution that is funded
including by disabled people's tuitions and fed fees and whatnot
in taxes. But you know where's my money go? It
goes into bill in an accessible university? Right, So why

(01:04:02):
am I supposed to let you judge what is reasonable?
I think it's incredibly unreasonable that you use my money
to build a university that not is not only hard
for me to be at, but it is actively hostile
to my health. Um. And so you know, and just
the word accommodations centers and codifies that inaccessibility as being

(01:04:25):
the norm and anything you do different from it is
like you being accommodating. We'll get that, get the hell
out over here with that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it
makes much more sense to phrase it in those ways.
And like, yeah, it seems like it was, as you said,
a very ambitious goal and one that not only those

(01:04:46):
things got transferred, which is I mean that that can
happen in strikes. But it's also like it's it's a
non economic thing that the university could have given to
you all that it wouldn't have had to have, you know,
I mean, in the university has a lot of money,
and it would it would be very possible for it
to pay grad to its students the ways they asked
for at the start and post grad post docs and

(01:05:08):
could be paid the way to say asked for. Tierney
wouldn't really had the university they could, they could, you know,
there are a million ways they could fund that. But well,
I think that gets to the crux of why they
don't do this, because the thing is is that if
if you really think about it this way, and it
takes a little doing, because again we're sort of school
dot to, but it is a form of misappropriation of

(01:05:30):
public funds. If all of the public is funding this
institution and we do that through our state and our
federal taxes, we do and and then of course if
we get in, we're doing it through tuition of feeds.
And then of course the grants the university gets are
also federal grants and this sort of thing. Um, then
what you're doing is you're taking money that comes from

(01:05:51):
all of the public and pre pandemic figures in terms
of like this is before the mass disabling event that
the pandemic is the of America. Adult Americans had at
least one disability. So you're taking money from those folks,
and you're saying, but we're not going to build this

(01:06:11):
public university in a way that is not only like
tolerable by you, but like a place where you could thrive.
It doesn't even reach tolerable. It actually drives a lot
of us out of here. It worse in health, and
I have no doubt that it has killed people. So
we so what happens. The reason I mentioned this is
because that misappropriation to funds, you know, that's the incentive, right,

(01:06:35):
What can if if if you're going off this austerity
mindset that you shut off like people from things they need, right,
what happens to that money? Well, we have an ADMIN
that is completely bloated in size. We have every single
chancellor getting a raise during a pandemic that they completely
blew in terms of public health protections, in terms of

(01:06:57):
accessibility even to people when they needed it ring the pandemic, Like,
if they hadn't been fighting accessibility that long, we would
have handled the pandemic better because we would have had
better online pedagogy already available and developed. So it is
that's a kind of jump that people don't make. But
that's exactly what's going on. That's why they have the

(01:07:19):
interest in putting this rationing and policing bureaucracy together to like,
not many disabled people even get here because this is
of course not the only ablest institution. It's hard to
even get here. But then when you get here, they
want to reduce who can get their access needs met.
And then the access needs being met is such a

(01:07:43):
gauntlet and only the most privileged of disabled people can
get that. And so you know, as far as disabled
people at at you see who are in the system
so to speak, you know, are registered or whatever, that's
going to not at all be representative of the public
that's going to be mostly white folks with some access

(01:08:06):
to privilege, you know, yeah, of course. And I think
you've given a good sort of elucidation of why this
is a struggle that obviously everyone should be part of,
everyone should be getting behind, because it's like it's it's
all of us whore invested in this in order of
us are paying for this university which isn't accessible right now.
So I wonder, like, what's your advice because there are

(01:08:29):
unprecedented numbers of people forming unions right like Starbucks being
one example that we see a lot of coverage of,
but all across the country there are more people forming
unions there and more people going on to strike. How
should they organize around similar things? Like how should they
organize around getting these access needs met? Well, I think

(01:08:52):
I think you have to start by sweeping your old
side of the street, which is that you have to
make sure that your union communications, you're meetings, uh, everything
about your union is accessible. And if you don't know
how to do that, then that's where you start. You
start with learning what accessibility is and how to make
things accessible. Because what we found when we started, uh,

(01:09:14):
when we came out kind of UC access, now did
was you know, as you can imagine in a society
where there are quite strong financial punishments for even to say,
you know, even identifying as disabled. And what I mean
by that is like say, again here on UC Davis,

(01:09:37):
you were talking about how hard it was for you
to get parking right, you know, when you had s
chatter Pelvis, how it was to go every single day
here on campus. There are able to employees driving trucks
and vans that they drive straight up to the door
of the building on the sidewalk, blocking egress for actual
disabled people and actually blocking fire regress out of the
building because that's what's you know, because they can't be

(01:09:59):
bothered to twenty ft from the legal space that they
have already have the privilege of being on campus compared
to everybody else, right, but they but they had to
have an even more convenient to that and then they
drive straight up to the door, right. Nobody gives them.
Nobody says boo about that. Nobody says you need to
get a medical documentation, Nobody says you're getting fined and

(01:10:21):
you're and you you don't get to drive this campus
truck again or whatever, none of that goes on. What
would happen. I guarantee you if that employee identified as
disabled all of a sudden, then they would come down
on that person for what they're doing. It's it's a
real So because of these things, there's a lot of
incentive for people to hide their disability because you get

(01:10:45):
there's a lot of stigma, but there's also a real,
quite real financial hit to it. And uh and so
what happens once you sort of create a safer space
to talk about it, people will start damning you, you know,
and they will let you know that they're starting to
have problems on the job or whatever. They may not
be ready to come out for those like some people,

(01:11:07):
it's obvious they're disabled, right, It's not even like they
have a choice about quote unquote coming out right. But
for other people, it's not obvious unless they tell you,
and they have a lot of incentive to not you know,
identify that way. Um, but when you make your union
a safe and inclusive and accessible place, you will find

(01:11:27):
that you have already been making assumptions about what your
union membership is, so you already have members who are disabled.
It's just that they're not telling you about it. But furthermore,
if your union starts really um becoming an accessible inclusive place,
you know, not performative really being there, like your your

(01:11:49):
communications are accessible, you you're clearly UM educating yourselves around
able is um educating yourselves around accessibility. So like when
you have your meeting, it's not in uh a room
that isn't wheelchair accessible, that doesn't have a working elevator
on that floor. When you know all these things that
people kind of don't think about until uh they're the

(01:12:10):
one with the broken leg um, then that really goes
some way to helping you organize things. And you will
find you already have members that you can tap, you know,
because they'll start to feel more for more involved once
they see you're willing to go to bad from them.
And what I would say that peaks folks should learn

(01:12:30):
from the U see you a w experience right now.
And this doesn't just refer to disabled work as it's
really other marginalized workers, which is, you know, if you're
in a contract bargaining situation and it's clear that like
you're the bargaining chip, Like why would that why would

(01:12:52):
that group want to hang with you. You're you're saying,
support us and what we want, but we're gonna desert
you when it's your time. You weren't gonna depend on
the fact that everybody likes more pay, and we're just
gonna say, Okay, you're gonna stick with us and and work,
you know, with the union, no matter what it's like.
Now a lot of people are gonna go, well, I'm

(01:13:14):
sticking you know. You clearly don't support me, So I
don't see why I need to go with you and
put myself at risk because if you win, I'm gonna
get the raise anyway. And uh and if you don't win,
well then that's good for you because now you know
how it feels like to be tossed aside, you know. So,
so you have to really be there for your marginalized workers.

(01:13:35):
You know. It has to be this non performative thing.
But the but the thing is is that if you
are non performative about it, you are you're making the
workplace not only better from disabled workers you already have,
but you are making it better for yourself because every
single one of us pretty much is going to be disabled,

(01:13:56):
either temporarily or permanently at some point. In our lives.
It is the easiest club to join. And you know,
I think, as we found during the pandemic. You know,
people a lot of people they make this they say, oh,
online sucks, online school sucks. Why does it suck because
you never invested in it. It's like several several decades

(01:14:20):
and old, you never invested in it. You never put
any effort or money into it. Like that's you know,
So if you want your workplace to be a good
quality workplace for you, that is not only just like
a place you barely you know, feel okay going to,
but like someplace you really we spend most of our

(01:14:40):
lives in the workplace, you know, right, so it should
be someplace that really makes us feel better and fulfilled.
Because nobody works well when they're stressed out. Nobody, you know,
you're not productive when you're constantly stressed. So this really
should be a win win all around. And and you're

(01:15:00):
think about it this way also, which is that you know,
and this is particularly applicable when it comes to you
see and you know, the pandemic is another great example
of this is this has gotten a little bit of
focus on the press. But I don't think as much
as it deserves, which is that you have this not
only an event where millions of people died globally, right
which you have. You have quite a few people, they

(01:15:22):
have long COVID, they have other things. People who arrive
at you see and particularly who go you know, get
to the point they've got their degree or whatever. You know,
these are people who are trained, highly educated, trained in
a certain thing. They're making contributions to their field. Do
you really want it to be that we lose all
the knowledge that these people have, all the the institutional

(01:15:47):
memory and experience that these people have, just at a
time when we're facing an incredible crises as a planet,
you know, in terms of climate change and in terms
of you know, the attacks on democracies and things, or
just even what the people mean to their community, right
you know, you're talking about the fabric of your community.
If you make it. If you have an inaccessible workplace,

(01:16:09):
if you have an inaccessible school, if you have places
you know in the public square that are not accessible,
you're making it so that when somebody becomes disabled, and
that person could be you, you may never be able
to practice the thing that you love and you've trained
for your whole life and the community loses what you

(01:16:32):
could bring to this at a time when we need
more than ever every all hands on deck to be
like solving climate change and other problems that face us. Yeah, yeah,
that is it's very well said. Actually that yeah, sat
he made a very good case. So I wonder, I

(01:16:54):
mean obviously that the negotiations are still ongoing, at least
for the SIU and for a I think as well, Um,
so what can people do to support the demands that
have been made? How can people maybe who are not
part of the union, who are not part of the

(01:17:14):
u C even or perhaps undergrad to are part of
the u S but not part of the union, how
how can they show solidarity and support here? Well, I
think part of this is, you know, not giving up
on the idea that we can press for the original
access to needs article. I know there's all sorts of
like you know, technical rules about regressive bargaining, but honestly,

(01:17:35):
I think you see has broken a lot of the
rules of bargaining. So I don't see why that doesn't
you know what It's like, what's good for the goose
is good for the gander. As far as I'm concerned,
but there's also even outside of bargaining. You know, as
I said, a lot of these things are things that
you see routinely breaks a d A you see routinely
breaks There's other parts of disability law in terms of

(01:17:57):
Section five oh for the Rehabilitation Act, and there's some
California law as well as my understanding of it. So
you know, you see, just as they have this rationing
and Policing agency bureaucracy, and it's two separate silos, one
for students and one for workers, and they do that.
Like even the fact that they do that communicates that
it's not about offering accessibility as a default, because why

(01:18:19):
would you have two silos for that. Well, you have
two silos for that because the law that affects students
and affects workers are slightly different. So what you're coming
from is this aspect of we are dedicated to only
doing the barest minimum of the minimum required by law,
so we don't even want to meet that minimum required

(01:18:40):
by law. It's like it's like, you know, you want
to offer minimum wage, but if you can get away
with it, you're not even going to meet minimum wage.
And you have a lot of lawyers in a bureaucracy
to make it possible for you to do that. That's
what you see does um So that kind of stuff
is stuff that outside of even a labor contract, you
should be a to write the governor, right, the lieutenant governor,

(01:19:03):
who's actually got a seat on the board of regents.
Rights here, California legislators, you know when there was a
there was a nimby who sued cal This was in
the news this year. There was a nimby who sued
Cow to make it so the cal Con make housing
and and or to Cow to make it so the
Cow was gonna have to limit how many it was

(01:19:24):
admitting because in the opinion of that group, like they
weren't building enough housing to take care of their students,
and they were crowding at Berkeley and blah blah blah.
The outrage about that from parents who wanted to send
their kids to Cow was so great that like within
a couple of weeks, the governor and the legislators had
passed something to address that. If you put that kind

(01:19:45):
of pressure on the governor of the lieutenant governor and
the you know, your state legisslators, they will make sure
that the UC Office of the president feels that pressure
because these are things. These are laws. You know, at
the we had more ambitious things beyond law. But some
of the things that we were that are trying to

(01:20:06):
do in this contract are really just things that they're
already required by a lot of do but aren't doing.
We were trying to give it and make it so
there was more teeth there, because clearly the federal and
state teeth weren't good enough. So we um we have
a resist spot petition out there, but you know, to
make it a little easier to contact your If you're

(01:20:28):
a California resident, the resist pot petition would work that way.
But if but if not, you know, like I said,
if you if you, if you're a parent of a
student here, you can write. If you're an alumni, you
know you can write, just really hammer them about it. Okay, Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I think I think writing does make a difference. And

(01:20:50):
I think especially for an institution that I don't quite
know how financially dependent they are in donations, but they
certainly do like to solicit them, especially if you're an alum.
This because they solicit them for me a lot, I
do not have that much money so yeah, thank you
very much for sharing all of that with us. And
I thought that's really really instructive. How can people find

(01:21:11):
you and how can people find you? See access now
if they want to find you online? Uh, we are
on Twitter as access you see at access you see um.
We are on Facebook and Instagram as well. Actually is
also linked in for the more business people. Uh you
see access now um. And you can also reach us

(01:21:32):
at you see access now at gmail dot com if
you wanted to email us. Wonderful. Yeah, thank you very much,
And just to Finnish that briefly, we are going to
try and make a transcript. It's available at the same
time the episode goes out, and so folks would like
to read it that way if that's easier for them
than We're going to make sure that we have that
for this one. So yeah, if you're if you're listening,

(01:21:54):
or if you think someone else that you know would
like this and listening doesn't work for them, that we're
going to do that. Thank you so much, Megan for
giving us some of your afternoon. And yeah, I hope
you see some support and I wish you the best
of luck with everything. Well, thank you so much. It
Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

(01:22:15):
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