UC San Diego academic workers walkout over Gaza war protest response (2024)

A rolling strike by unionized academic workers upset about the University of California's response to pro-Palestinian protests at various campuses was expected to spread to three more campuses this week, including UC San Diego Monday.

According to United Auto Workers Local 4811, workers will hit the picket lines Monday morning at UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara, with UC Irvine workers joining the lines Wednesday.

The wave of walkouts began at UC Santa Cruz, then spread this week to UCLA and UC Davis.

At UC San Diego, about a hundred people were gathered outside with picket signs throughout the day. According to the union, UAW represents 8,000 at UC San Diego, including graduate student researchers, teaching aides, postdoctorate students and project scientists.

The union has 31,500 members at all six of the universities now targeted by the strikes, including 5,000 workers at UC Irvine along with 3,000 at UC Santa Barbara.

"For the last month, UC has used and condoned violence against workers and students peacefully protesting on campus for peace and freedom in Palestine," Rafael Jaime, president of UAW Local 4811, said in a statement. "Rather than put their energies into resolution, UC is attempting to halt the strike through legal procedures. They have not been successful, and this strike will roll on. We are united in our demand that UC address these serious ULPs, beginning with dropping all criminal and conduct charges that have been thrown at our members because they spoke out against injustice."

UAW Local 4811 is asking the UC schools to give amnesty to all academic employees and students who faced arrest or disciplinary actions for protesting at campuses. The union also wants the students to have guarantees of freedom of speech and political expression on campus and is asking for researchers to be able to opt out of funding sources tied to the Israeli Defense Force.

"They violated our contract when they, May 6, they actually sent in riot cops to the encampment that was originally on Library Walk," Joyce Chan, a UCSD neuroscience postdoctorate. "Calling in hundreds of cops in riot gear, they not only endangered the safety of you know, their very own students and protesters but also the safety of workers including union members who were present at the encampment."

Chan added that she did not feel safe having police in riot gear or snipers on rooftops, which she said was the case with the "Gaza Solidarity" encampment established by students on the campus on May 1.

Protesters called for charges to be dropped or suspensions to be halted against the about 65 people arrested that day, including the 7 union members, Chan said.

"We also don't want this to be a precedent for future protests and like exercising free speech, right," Chan said.

The UCSDivest Coalition, organizers of the encampment campaign, called on UCSD to "end their silence and publicly condemn the destruction of over 80% of schools and all 12 universities in Gaza in a systematic dismantling of infrastructure that UN experts have termed scholasticide," a statement from the organization read.

On May 6, the California Highway Patrol encircled a group of protesters at the encampment, taking down tents and arresting 65 protesters, along with one injury.

Morgen Chalmiers, a UCSD student and one of the protest organizers, described the arrests as a violent action against peaceful students.

"Today, we saw UCSD administration willfully endanger communities of color, undocumented individuals, and other marginalized groups, whom we know are at a disproportionate risk of state violence," Chalmiers said. "Today, we also witness the invasion of Rafah by the Israeli Occupation Forces, who train San Diego police, and we recognize the ties between militarism, police violence, and repression on our campus and the ongoing genocide in Palestine."

Authorities declared the encampment an unlawful assembly at about 5:45 a.m. Monday. Officers ordered the protesters to leave.

Students at UC San Diego established a "Gaza Solidarity" encampment on the campus' Library Walk Wednesday, joining dozens of universities around the world where students maintain pro-Palestinian sites.

Chancellor Pradeep Khosla released a statement Sunday calling the protest an "illegal encampment," and that the tents on Library Walk pose "an unacceptable safety and security hazard on campus."

On May 8, more than 1,000 protesters marched at UCSD as a continuation of the ongoing demonstrations in support of the people of Gaza, as well as condemnations of school administration following the arrests.

Again, on May 10, UCSD students and faculty staged a walkout which saw more than 100 members of the UCSD community chant and march to Khosla's home off campus. Many wore keffiyehs or academic dress and carried signs calling on the university to sever financial ties with Israel.

The UC system has blasted the union's allegations and filed unfair labor practice complaints of its own, saying the union's labor contract has a no-strike provision and that the union's demands are outside the scope of union labor issues. The university has also rejected calls for amnesty.

"We are disheartened that UAW continues publicly escalating its unlawful strike in violation of its contracts' no-strike clause and encouraging its members to disrupt and harm the ability of our students to navigate finals and other critical year-end activities successfully," UC officials said in a statement Friday. "UAW's goal to `maximize chaos and confusion' has come to fruition, creating substantial and irreparable impacts on campuses and impacting our students at a crucial time of their education. We are hopeful PERB (Public Employment Relations Board) will intervene and ask the court to end this precedent-setting, unlawful action."

The state's Public Employment Relations Board previously declined the university's request for an injunction that would have blocked the strike, but UC officials said the board issued a complaint against the union saying the walkout is "contrary to the no-strike clauses in their collective bargaining agreements." Union officials said PERB has also called for both sides to meet and discuss the issues, forcing the university to the table rather than just seeking an injunction.

The union represents teaching assistants, readers, tutors, student researchers and academic researchers.

Protesters moved from campus to the jail downtown and Civic Center Plaza to push for the students' release. NBC 7's Kelvin Henry shows us how the day unfolded.