Fruits of Our Labor

Bruin Plaza was flush with royal blue shirts on Wednesday morning, the color of choice for the University Council-American Federation of Teachers members who were leading chants and handing out pizza in a spirited celebration of the victory they had achieved after the union's frantic late-night negotiations with university officials. Cheers made possible by the threat of a work stoppage that, according to UC-AFT president, Mia McIver, was instrumental in their success.

“It was a tremendous effort by thousands of people,” said McIver. “It entailed collective bargaining, letter-writing campaigns, phone campaigns, and multiple strike authorizations. The effort culminated in us making it clear that we were willing to go on strike if the university wasn’t willing to bargain in good faith.”

The actions by UC-AFT members to bargain for better working conditions, higher wages, and paid family leave reflect a new wave of American workers that are leveraging their bargaining power in unprecedented ways. Strike season is upon us, and the momentum is only escalating.

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Mia McIver and Karl Lisovsky.

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Posters from demonstrators.

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Mia McIver gives empassioned speech.

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Students and Faculty celebrate the new contract.

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In the spirit of solidarity, Tevita Uhatafe found himself traveling from Southlake, Texas, to Los Angeles in support of UC-AFT and the lecturers threatening to go on strike during their negotiations with their UC employers. Draped in a t-shirt that read, “Work Union, Live Better,” Uhatafe was ready for a day of picketing but pleased to see his fellow workers have their demands met.

“I’m a proud member of Transport Workers Union, and I was here initially for a strike,” said Uhatafe, “But we got good news, the teachers got the contract they were looking for, so it’s more of a celebration now.”

Uhatafe’s union represents a broad coalition of transportation workers across the country who work in air or train transportation; they include mechanics, flight attendants, and others. Over the last year, he’s traveled across the country, meeting with members of other unions and joining picket lines in solidarity. He emphasized the importance of building coalitions between workers from different unions and coming together to create change and meet the demands of working families.

“Strikes are our greatest weapon as workers, but it isn’t used lightly,” said Uhatafe. “It is our last-ditch effort of saying enough is enough. You’re seeing it more and more often now because of the pandemic. Because people are standing up and demanding more from their employers in this time of crisis, people are asking, how can you live and prosper in this country if you don’t make the wages you’re supposed to? How can you survive? ”

The Numbers Game

The Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps track of labor stoppages; over a dozen union-led strikes with at least 1,000 participants have taken place over the past year. The United Auto Workers led the largest of these efforts against John Deere after 10,000 workers across 14 plants began to strike for better wages and stronger healthcare provisions last month. Earlier in the year, the union successfully organized efforts in Virginia, securing workers their demands after contentious negotiations and declining multiple offers from Volvo management. The UAW continued that strategy with the John Deere workers who recently negotiated a historic contract after turning down several requests from the company. The success of that steadfast and direct approach has had downstream effects across the country, with more and more workers getting organized like never before. There have been a plethora of other major work stoppages since the pandemic sent worker precarity skyrocketing and put organizing efforts into overdrive.

Kellog’s workers have been on strike across the country, with actions currently taking place at all of the companies cereal producing plants. In Alabama, coal miners from the United Mine Workers of America have been on strike since April. But the work stoppages haven’t just taken place in mines or at large plants.

On May Day, Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations launched the IRL Labor Action Tracker. They launched the initiative to bridge the gap in data provided by the BLS, which only tracks labor stoppages where 1,000 or more workers participated. For example, even the ongoing strike by the Massachusetts Nurses Association at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester—owned by Tenet Healthcare, one of the country’s largest for-profit hospital chains—is left out of the BLS data because the strike involves just 800 nurses. The IRL Labor Action Tracker shows that America’s militant labor streak extends into smaller workplaces as well. They estimate that over 300 work stoppages have occurred across the country in the past year.

On Stage, McIver highlighted the accomplishments of her fellow union members, including the sunglass-wearing Karl Lisovsky, whom McIver credited with having spearheaded the organizing efforts that led to their victory celebration that morning. Lisovsky, who has lectured in the UC system for over 20 years, played a hands-on role in the union’s ground team.

Worker Voices

Mia's Speech

Tevita Uhatafe

Mia McIver

Karl Lisovsky

“Our table team has been amazing and most instrumental in making this happen,” said Lisovsky. “The rest of us, we call ourselves organizers. We’re the ones who are making the phone calls, doing the phone banks, text banks, visiting people in classrooms, and recruiting new people into the union.”

McIver and Lisovsky both stressed the importance of long-term organizing efforts in producing the victories their union achieved last Wednesday. The contract UC-AFT petitioned to replace was won by previous strikers in 2003, a battle that Lisovsky was familiar with firsthand.

“The last strike we had was in 2003, and that strike effort got us the contract we have now,” said Lisovsky. “The problem with that contract is that it took six years for lecturers to get the bulk of their benefits. Working with that old contract, we were cycling through way too many lecturers because it allowed the university to not bring back faculty for the long term; it’s cheaper and gives them what they call — management flexibility.”

Universities choose to move on from lecturers before their full range of benefits can kick in, creating a similar revolving door in our educational system to the one we see in the gig economy. In both realms, powerful institutions skirt around labor laws by mislabeling their workforce and denying them the rights afforded to full-time employees.

The Gig is Up

“This campaign was a fight against gigification,” said McIver. “It’s a fight against gigification of the university and gigification of education, and that fight extends far beyond the ivory tower as well.”

UC-AFT remained firm in its demands despite the initial roadblocks they ran into during their negotiations. That commitment to a work stoppage led to overnight roundtable negotiations, which lasted until four in the morning, ultimately resulting in a landmark new contract for adjuncts and non-tenured lecturers within the UC system. According to the new agreement: All bargaining unit members will be eligible for four weeks of paid family leave at full pay. Those with good job evaluations will keep their positions under new rehiring rights, and workload requirements will be more transparent and consistent. UC agreed to a 7% pay increase 60 days after the contract’s ratification and annual salary increases of 3% for the next three years and 4% in the final year of the five-year contract. UC also agreed to provide merit raises, shifts to a new salary scale, and a $1,500 signing bonus to each lecturer on ratification.

Only last week, Ryan King, a spokesman for UCOP, stated that “The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has not determined unfair labor practices against UC.”

But, upon reaching the landmark new labor arrangement, UC officials were quick to praise the new standard and eager for working conditions to continue without the interruption of a work stoppage. “This contract honors the vital role our lecturers play in supporting UC’s educational mission and delivering high-quality instruction and education.” said sitting UC president Michael V. Drake in a statement following the decision.

The president’s remarks come at the end of the tense negotiating process that McIver suggested was rockier than official statements might lead observers to believe. McIver emphasized that UC-AFT, not the administration, had arranged for the two days of negotiations leading to the proposed work stoppage.

“We proposed the two days of negotiations because we wanted to present President Drake’s administration with the opportunity to negotiate in good faith before we walked out,” said Mciver. “When the employer comes to the table and engages, good things happen. But, most of the time, they don’t do that. Most of the time, they try to get away with doing as little as they possibly can. We needed a transformative new contract because we do transformative work.”