Today we attended the Rally Against Retaliation, starting at the Inverted Fountain and marching to Bruin Plaza. The focus of the rally was to call out UC intimidation tactics, including notifying workers in Life Sciences that their research work in the lab are part of “course credits” rather than employment and threatening grading penalties. We marched to the office of the Dean of Life Sciences to deliver a notice of unfair labor practices.
Today we joined the strikers for a holiday potluck meal (we brought pies!) in Dickson Court South, just north of Schoenberg Hall. We tried putting up the banner on some tripod stands but they fell over a lot in the wind! Shannon Speed, in Gender Studies and Anthropology, and director of the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA, spoke to union members as part of the program.
Another beautiful day at the picket at Bunche Hall, meeting new friends and calling for livable wages for UC graduate students and postdocs.
Today we participated (roughly fifty of us!) in the All-UC Faculty Solidarity Rally and joined in with the Los Angeles Entertainment Unions Solidarity Picket with UAW UCLA Workers at the Inverted Fountain.
We met at Bunche at 12:30pm and then walked together with the strikers to the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood, where we all stood in the intersection and held a brief rally before walking back to campus.
Some of us started at 12pm at the picket near the Gonda Building, and then at 12:30pm we all met at Bunche as usual. At 3pm, we went to the rally at the Inverted Fountain.
We started at Bunche and traveled to pickets at the Inverted Fountain and the Court of Sciences.
We gathered near Bunche at 12:30pm as usual, and around 2pm walked with the banner to the picket at the Inverted Fountain, the picket in front of the Broad Art Center (where we were greeted with cheers!), and the rally in Dickson Plaza.
Great faculty turnout for the first day of the strike! Many departments were represented, including Asian American Studies, Chicana/o Studies, School of Education and Information Studies, Gender Studies, History, Law, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology.
At 3pm we carried the banner to Bruin Plaza where all the pickets converged for a rally.
