AFSCME 3299 and UPTE-CWA 9119, unions that represent over 50,000 employees at the University of California, are striking later this week over newly implemented restrictions on worker and union speech. UCLA Radio’s Ellis Wren sat down with Amy and Mateo, members of the Student Labor Advocacy Project (SLAP) of UCLA, to discuss the importance of these ULP strikes and how students can support workers at the picket line.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity purposes.
Ellis: To start off, could you tell us a little bit about SLAP?
Mateo: Yeah, for sure. SLAP stands for the Student Labor Advocacy Project. We are a group of undergraduate students, and we work to support not only the career workers, like AFSCME 3299 and UPTE 9119, but also our student workers. We have various campaigns, like one for increased minimum wage for ASUCLA workers and one regarding the mistreatment of student workers during the LA wildfires.
Ellis: Who do UPTE 9119 and AFSCME 3299 represent, and why are these unions going on strike this week?
Amy: So AFSCME represents over 35,000 workers across the UC, and they’re primarily service and patient care workers. So in the universities, this looks like dining workers, this looks like transportation workers, this looks like custodians and landscapers. A lot of the medical staff that aren’t nurses or doctors are also covered by AFSCME. So this is a lot of the workers, right, that we as students really interact with on a day-to-day basis, that clean our dorms, that clean our classrooms, that feed us. And then UPTE represents almost 20,000 workers across the UC, primarily healthcare professionals, technical workers and researchers.
AFSCME is going to be going on a two-day strike on the 26th and the 27th, and UPTE is going to be going on a three-day strike on the 26th, 27th, and 28th, across the entire UC system. They’re both going on what’s called a ULP strike, which stands for unfair labor practice.
So ULP strikes are a bit different than typical strikes. Both of the unions have been in negotiations with the UC since around January of last year. Their contract expired with the UC around October, and since then they had the first strike in November, and have been in negotiations since. But ULP strikes aren’t specifically about the contract.
ULP strikes are instead about, as it says, unfair labor practices, so essentially violations of labor law. Both of these unions are going on strike against the UC’s illegal intimidation of workers aimed at preventing them from winning a fair contract. AFSCME specifically references the implementation of new policies that limit the ability to leaflet, picket, strike, and speak up, as well as the UC issuing widespread threats against workers.
And UPTE talks about limits on speech that include restrictions on where leaflets can be distributed and where workers can rally. A lot of these policies are also part of TPM (Time, Place and Manner policies), which the UC originally implemented in large part against student organizers. But these same ideas, these same policies, are now being used against unions, so that’s really what these strikes are about. They’re obviously tied to the contract fight, but they’re more specifically about the intimidation that workers are experiencing.
Ellis: As you said, UPTE and AFSCME both specifically cited instances in which TPM policies have been used with regard to workers’ speech, while these policies have also been deployed and intensified in response to student campus demonstrations. So how are students and workers respectively situated to respond to these policies that limit public expression?
Amy: Starting off, there’s a lot to be said for us working in solidarity and coming out for each other, because as you said, we’re seeing the effects of the same policies. Ultimately, whether it’s students protesting the UC’s investments in war, weapons and genocide, or whether it’s workers demanding a fair contract, safe working conditions and fair pay, it all ultimately threatens the UC’s interests. And so I think there is a lot that we can do just to support each other and to turn out.
But I think that there are different ways. I think for students, those are protesting and a lot of the direct action work that students have been doing. And I think it’s also a lot about showing up for unions.
And then for the unions, I think the strikes over the UC’s unfair labor practices are ways that they can really, really leverage their unique power as unions, as workers at the UC, to fight back against these policies.
Ellis: It was recently reported that UCLA is revising its current TPM policies to re-allow certain activities like the use of amplified sound in marches. How do you respond to those changes?
Amy: If I’m going to be honest, I don’t really think it means much. The UC is just responding to the pressure that’s already been put on it. If anything, we can say it’s a good thing that we can see that they’re responsive to pressure, right? We can see that if we continue to put pressure on them, it works.
But I don’t think it’s a victory. I don’t think it means that the problem is solved. TPM is still there. It’s still being applied to unions, still being applied to student organizers, still being allowed to repress us. At the end of the day, I think all this really does is make the UC’s public image a little bit better.
So what I think we should understand is that the UC is scared of us. We had the university implement these policies after the spring, and now they’re trying to walk them back just a little bit, right? This shows that they respond to our pressure. As much as they may not want to admit it, when students and workers take up collective action on a mass scale, it does force a response out of them. But this isn’t a victory by any means: we need to keep going.
As much as the UC may not want to admit it, when students and workers take up collective action on a mass scale, it does force a response.
Amy, Student Labor Advocacy Project
Ellis: One specific cause that has been impacted by TPM, also a point of solidarity between unions and student organizers, is the campaign for divestment from Blackstone. How do the UC’s investments in Blackstone impact workers, students and our communities as a whole?
Amy: So first of all, just a little basic context about Blackstone. Blackstone is a private equity firm and one of the largest owners of real estate in the world. Essentially, what they do is go and buy up a bunch of properties and then carry out no-fault evictions. So they’ll just evict all the current tenants, and then raise the prices a lot. And this eventually raises the prices in the surrounding area, which happens not just in California, not just in the US, but on a global scale.
Even the UN has credited them with contributing to the global housing crisis, right? And their CEO has talked about how evictions contribute to their bottom line. But despite this, the UC has $8.6 billion invested in Blackstone. And about $4 billion of that was invested back in 2023 when Blackstone was looking a little bit unsteady.
At that moment, the UC chose to invest more money in Blackstone to reassure investors about its financial stability. That was something they absolutely did not have to do, but chose to do. And in addition to buying up land around some UC campuses, although not UCLA, Blackstone literally owns student housing as well.
And this is directly raising the cost of living in communities around UC campuses. But we’re just seeing the UC’s pattern of development more broadly. UC continually lets in more and more students, but they don’t develop more housing. But they have the properties to, right? UC just bought a ton of medical centers this year.
They could have bought something to develop into housing, but instead they choose to invest in something that’s going to drive up their profits. This year at UCLA especially, we’re really seeing how this is impacting students, where getting on-campus housing or a university apartment is becoming increasingly difficult. And that’s a product of the UC’s patterns of development.
This is also directly tied to the housing crisis because this then floods the local housing market and really drives up the price of living around the UCs. It’s actually substantially more expensive to live around UCs than a lot of other colleges or universities, specifically because of their development patterns and their investments in Blackstone.
While this is really impacting the price of student housing, it’s also making it really difficult for workers to live around the UC. Over 86% of AFSCME workers can’t afford to live anywhere near where they work. A lot of workers have to commute multiple hours every day to and from work. Some even end up sleeping in their cars just because commuting back and forth is so much time that it’s not even worth it to go back.
Ellis: So bearing in mind that these patterns impact both students and workers, how can undergraduate students support the strikes? Does SLAP have any programming planned for the week to facilitate this support?
Mateo: Strike support can manifest in a lot of different ways for students. I think an obvious one is just coming out to the pickets. We’re going to be picketing from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, and then from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday. So come out to the pickets. We’re going to have games. We’re going to have a teach-in. Students can come buy shirts to support the workers.
But if you don’t have time to, you know, skip your least favorite class and come out to the strike, there’s other things you can do, like donating to our Venmo @uclastudentsforafscme. You can also observe our boycott of ASUCLA stores.
And then there’s also just talking to workers, stopping by, not only during the strike, but also before and after. I think a lot of workers feel as though they’re invisible. The way in which the UC portrays them kind of positions them as that labor force that’s there, but that you don’t really interact with. You know what I mean? So it does a lot for them for us to recognize, you know, their humanity and the hard work that they’re doing all the time that is imperative to the university even functioning. And just have a conversation with them. Ask them how their day is going. How was their weekend? Would they like our support in any way? Just simple stuff like that is also very, very helpful.
Ellis: Yeah, of course. One way we’ve seen SLAP currently working to support the strike is the Community Solidarity Pledge that you’ve been sharing for students and other community members to sign. Why is it important for community members to sign this pledge?
Mateo: First off, as students, it’s helpful because it gets you connected. You’ll get updates and you’ll know what’s going on at all times. But also, historically, AFSCME strikes have been most successful when students come out and show their support. I think that a lot of students are unaware of how much power they really hold when they stand together and stand with workers.
So if the UC sees that there are thousands of students signing this pledge and hundreds of students coming out to the pickets, engaging with workers and building these relationships, that’s when they’ll start to realize that they can’t keep doing these unfair labor practices. They’ll see that people’s images of them are changing and that’s not okay. So I think that student support, whether it’s from the pledge or from us coming out to strike, is really imperative to the fight for justice on campus and beyond.
Historically, AFSCME strikes have been most successful when students come out and show their support. I think that a lot of students are unaware of how much power they really hold when they stand together and stand with workers.
Mateo, Student Labor Advocacy Project
Ellis: Especially with how the movements for UC divestment have exploded this past year, we’ve seen a lot of emerging awareness about how the UC Regents’ decisions specifically impact students and workers. How can these ULP strikes move towards building long-term power in terms of challenging the UC Regents’ decisions?
Mateo: Like I was talking about earlier, the UC, and I guess just capitalist forces in general, work to divide people. You know, we have a lot more in common with the workers than we do with the admin. And that is crucial because there’s a lot of power that can be garnered when we stand together. It’s truly a very transformative experience to be in community with people who are undergoing the same struggles as you, when you talk to them and recognize their humanity. Just seeing each other, you know what I mean? That’s the groundwork.
And once you have that community, those relationships, I mean, the sky’s the limit. You can imagine how much becomes possible when people stand together and stand in solidarity. Just imagine if there was a general student strike when AFSCME went on strike. Imagine how much that would impact the Regents’ bottom line, what that would look like in the media. But this starts with having conversations, showing up, even just the little things. Do you have any other thoughts, Amy?
Amy: Yeah, just to build off that, the Regents are unelected. So they don’t have any accountability mechanism besides direct action, which is really the only way that we can hold them accountable. The Regents barely even interact with students, or workers for that matter.
And so I think things that force these interactions, like showing up directly to Regents’ meetings, or things that hurt the UC’s bottom lines, are the only things the Regents are really going to respond to. And that’s because, at the end of the day, the UC operates like a business.
They talk a lot about how they don’t have enough funding to negotiate a better contract for workers. Well, the university’s revenue has doubled in the last 10 years, despite the fact that during that time, they’ve negotiated new contracts with workers, including some pretty big wins. And the UC is still doing fine, right? The UC is doing better. They were making about $27 billion annually 10 years ago, now it’s $60 billion. And UC executives’ real wages have increased by about 50% when adjusted by inflation, while AFSCME members’ have declined by about 8%.
At the end of the day, we really see that what they respond to most is economic pressure. And strikes are a really, really big way to exert economic pressure, by the direct act of withholding labor, but also how the UC has to bring in other workers. And that’s part of the strategy behind two day strikes, right? The university has to hire people for a whole week, even if the union only strikes for two or three days, so they’re losing all of that money for the new contracts they have to enter into with other workers.
And that’s also part of the reason why we’re calling for the ASUCLA store boycott. It’s obviously not as intuitive as a dining hall boycott, right? Because dining halls are where AFSCME members actually work. But dining halls are already prepaid, and what happened last quarter was that students would go to ASUCLA stores instead, which actually made the UC money.
And so that’s why we’re calling for an economic boycott to amplify that economic pressure that the strike is already exerting from our positionality as students. This combination of economic pressure from organized labor and the direct action that we can take as students is really the only way that we can get the UC to listen to us.
Ellis: Are there any other actions that students should be aware of to avoid crossing the picket line?
Amy: I think for now, that’s the only thing we’ve defined as crossing the picket line. But it might be a little bit flexible as a contract fight goes on, right? Because after these strikes, the UC is likely not going to agree to the contracts that workers really need to survive. We’ll see what happens after this, but the likelihood is that it will be an ongoing issue. I think that in the face of that, one of the best things we can do as students is just to stay updated. Check out AFSCME, UPTE, and SLAP on Instagram, since we’ll be posting updates every time.
This is important because what crossing the picket line means might shift. We’ll test out different things, see what works best. For this week, we’re not making an official call for people to walk out of class or anything, but we do encourage students to skip class as much as possible and show up to the picket lines instead. Overall, the main thing that we are calling on people to do is to boycott ASUCLA stores.
Ellis: I think that wraps up this interview pretty well. Thank you both for coming in today to discuss the upcoming strikes! Do you have any final thoughts that you’d like to leave with our readers?
Amy: As we discussed before, the only way to really hold the UC accountable is through collective action. Rather than investing in genocide, campus militarization and exploiting workers, the UC could be investing in its students, in its workers, and in its community. We hope to see you all at the picket lines to fight with us!
Mateo: I also wanted to make an ask of readers: if you could imagine a world where students have billions of dollars available to invest in their needs, what do you think it would look like? How much would your tuition and housing theoretically cost, and what other amenities would you make available to yourself, your peers, and adult workers? I urge readers to dream deeply and thoughtfully imagine worlds different from ours. And, once you’ve reflected, I urge you to come out to the pickets and start building that world! Thank you to you, Ellis, UCLA Radio, and the reader for reading this. See you soon!
Follow the UCLA Radio News Department’s live coverage of the AFSCME 3299 and UPTE-CWA 9119 strike on our blog starting Wednesday, February 26.
