March 31st 3:30 PM--Picket outside of contract negotiations at South Campus Center; Meet --tell UW negotiators we will not allow this abuse, and demand that our union leadership call for a strike May 3rd at the end of contract negotiations--We have authorized a strike, and need to show that we will for these demands!
At 5 PM, UAW 4121 will have an action at Mary Gates Hall-look for details from our union's bargaining team.
April 5th 5 PM Smith 205--GENERAL ASSEMBLY to build for strike and make demands. Meet with members of WFSE 1488 (trades, librarians, and custodians), students, and others to strategize on how to build for our strike and how to win our demands.
An email I just received from uw-student-strike@riseup.net claims that there is a May 3rd strike proposed to demand (among other things) "full funding for all grad students." Is this true? And if so, are you all nuts? We might as well demand flying unicorns and free Cadillacs for all grad students! If the union is just going to counter UW's unreasonable proposal with even MORE unreasonable proposals, how are these issues ever going to get resolved?
ReplyDelete-Jonathan Morgan, UW Grad Student
Hi Jonny
ReplyDeleteThe e-mail you received represents the long-term demands of members of For A Democratic University. Many of us are also members of the union for academic student employees at the UW. We believe that funding security for graduate students is critical for us to be able to do our best teaching and research work. Preparations for a May 3 strike are being made by an independent coalition of student and community groups. While we think that the union should call an official strike if we don't have a good contract by April 30 (when our current contract expires), we also believe that strike actions are necessary now in order to build towards more ambitious demands in the future. We are inspired in recalling that workers' movements were able to win important gains such as social security even during the economic crisis of the Great Depression.
- Phil Neff, UW Grad Student