A strike by 2,000 academic workers began Monday at the University of California, Santa Cruz against the police repression of campus Gaza protests. The walkout at one of 10 University of California campuses follows an overwhelming statewide strike authorization vote of 48,000 academic workers in United Auto Workers Local 4811.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UC administration is continuing its attempts to ban the UC strike. On Friday, it filed an \u201cUnfair Labor Practice\u201d complaint with California\u2019s Public Employee Relations Board (PERB). A ruling is expected at any time. In its filing, the administration makes the authoritarian argument<\/a> that the strike must be banned because it \u201csets a dangerous and far-reaching precedent that social, political and cultural issues\u2014no matter how valid\u2014that are not labor-related can support a labor strike.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The strike is a major development in the growing movement against the genocide and the nationwide attack on the right to protest by both capitalist parties. The use of class struggle methods objectively raises the need for the emergence of the working class as the basic social and political force against war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The strike must become the beginning of a broader class movement. In the first place, the entire membership of the United Auto Workers, including autoworkers and defense industry workers, must demand strike action against the war and in defense of the students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This requires a struggle against the union bureaucracy, which is deliberately limiting the strike to a single campus in order to isolate it and shut it down before it can spread. UAW President Shawn Fain, a close ally of \u201cGenocide Joe Biden,\u201d exemplifies the total integration of the pro-corporate union apparatus with the state. The union is using as a model the so-called \u201cstandup strike\u201d in the auto industry last year, which did nothing to seriously impact production and was followed with mass layoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A number of groups active in the protests have issued important public statements denouncing the UAW bureaucracy\u2019s limiting of the strike to one campus. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has issued a statement<\/a> criticizing the limited \u201cstandup strike,\u201d writing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The path forward is clear: UAW 4811 must immediately call a strike at all University of California campuses. … UAW 4811 leadership must support the demands of their rank-and-file workers, and the broader grassroots movement for liberation. Any strike must demand disclosure, divestment, academic boycott, police abolition, amnesty and more. This must be a strike for Palestine. Winning our demands requires immediate strike action, we must not stop and we will not rest!<\/p>\n\n\n\n A statement<\/a> is also circulating among academic workers titled \u201cUAW members and students concerned by UCSC UAW leadership.\u201d It expresses \u201calarm\u201d at the \u201clack of a Cops Off Campus (COC) demand\u201d in the official demands of the union at UCSC, \u201cespecially in the face of heightened police violence on UC campuses against student protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It continues, \u201cTo our dismay, not only did the leadership refuse to address our concerns, they repeatedly attempted to intimidate us into silence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It concludes that the UCSC UAW leadership has \u201c[revealed] itself to be unfit to lead in this historical moment. \u2026 We cannot rely on performative acts by an undemocratic union leadership to achieve justice in Palestine, nor can they keep us safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These statements are welcome and important developments. They point to the growing potential for the movement to break out of the shackles the bureaucracy is trying to impose on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n As the World Socialist Web Site wrote last week:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Academic workers must now impose their democratic will through the formation of rank-and-file strike committees to mobilize for immediate, system-wide work stoppages. Against the attempts by the bureaucracy to limit their struggle, they must turn out to the autoworkers and the entire working class for support, establishing lines of communication to prepare for joint actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Academic workers at UCLA in particular are demanding to be called out on strike, after police allowed Zionists to brutally attack a protest encampment last month before the police cleared the encampment with rubber bullets and flashbangs and arrested 132 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One UC Los Angeles academic worker told the WSWS:<\/p>\n\n\n\n