This post was updated Sept. 2 at 10:03 p.m.
United Auto Workers Local 4811 filed a Demand to Bargain request over UC President Michael Drake’s recently-announced protest guidelines.
The guidelines – set forth in an Aug. 19 email sent by Drake – officially banned encampments across the UC, in addition to protests that block “free movement” and protesters using masks to conceal their identities. In a Monday email, UAW Local 4811 – the union representing academic student employees, graduate student researchers and academic and postdoctoral researchers across the UC – claimed that, by instituting these new policies, the UC unlawfully made unilateral changes to employment terms and should meet with the union to negotiate.
”As a matter within the scope of negotiations, the University has proposed a new policy(s) that has a significant and consequential impact on the terms and conditions of employment for members of UAW bargaining units,” said UAW Local 4811 President Rafael Jaime, in a statement to UC administrators. “As a result, the UAW is requesting to meet and confer over this policy(s), including the impact of the decisions.”
Drake’s email stated that the policies aim to create consistency in campus responses to protests. While encampments appeared across several UC campuses this spring, individual campus responses ranged from mediation to police intervention and arrests.
[Related How campuses across the UC negotiated with pro-Palestine protestors]
The California State Legislature also said in its July budget report that it would withhold $25 million from the UC unless it released University-wide guidelines on acceptable forms of expression by Oct. 1.
In the statement, UAW Local 4811 alleged that Drake’s newest guidelines hamper free speech and peaceful protest across the UC.
“The law is clear – UC cannot unilaterally change the terms of our employment,” said Max Green, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, in the press release. “We are demanding that UC come to the bargaining table to negotiate this profound new limit on our ability to exercise our free speech rights within our workplace.”
The move follows UAW Local 4811’s spring strike, which began at UCLA on May 28.
[Related: United Auto Workers Local 4811 begins UCLA strike at Dickson Plaza]
Members of the union withheld labor over alleged unfair labor practices committed by the UC in response to spring pro-Palestine protests, including allowing police to use force against union members during the May 2 sweep of UCLA’s first Palestine solidarity encampment. Another unfair labor practice charge filed against the UC claimed the University violated a bargaining agreement by failing to consult the union when instituting a new policy requiring arrested union employees to undergo the University’s employee disciplinary process.
While the union voted to authorize the strike through June 30, an Orange County Superior Court granted a temporary restraining order to the UC on June 7, effectively ending the strike.
The restraining order came in response to a breach of contract lawsuit filed by the UC, claiming that UAW Local 4811 violated a no-strike clause. The UC had previously attempted to end the strike several times by filing for injunctive relief from the California Public Employment Relations Board.
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