A chart shared with UAW members during the 2022-23 strike shows the process of reaching a contract settlement.
One of the main challenges in organizing graduate student workers is the large percentage of turnover between graduating and incoming students each year. Collective bargaining and contract ratification involve complicated internal and statutory processes that can seem overwhelming and confusing to new union members. During the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign, rank-and-file members developed and distributed infographics to help make those processes more legible and educate their co-workers about the multi-step processes it took to settle their contract fight. This example comes from UC Berkeley, where more members who had been through the contract ratification process before developed detailed visuals to share their knowledge and experience with their colleagues.
Infographics explaining the strike process, campus maps of picket lines, and more, are part of the UAW Fair UC Now Campaign 2022 Collection, part of the Wayne State Reuther Library.
UAW members and supporters shared thousands of online images, charts, and ideas including this meme expressing disappointment that the contract failed to include a cost of living adjustment (COLA).
Communication is crucial during any strike campaign, as announcements, information, and instructions must be shared as quickly as possible. But how do you communicate with 48,000 workers during a strike across multiple campuses who access information in a variety of ways? During the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign, workers used all kinds of information channels to get the word out to their co-workers, including private servers like Signal, WhatsApp, and Discord, as well as public-facing social media on Instagram and Twitter (now, X). Memes became a primary medium for summarizing key bargaining points, major events, and airing criticisms across all platforms. Although ephemeral by nature, these visual relics often carried deeper meaning for their creators. As the contributor of this meme from UC Merced described, for union members, memes became “an outlet for their frustration,” many opting for sarcasm and humor as they became disillusioned with the bargaining process.
A large collection of memes like these are part of the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection, part of the Wayne State Reuther Library.
This lunch menu from the Strike Kitchen set up in front of UCLA’s Bunche Hall is part of the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection, Wayne State Reuther Library.
How do you keep a picket line running all day? During the UAW strike at the University of California in 2022, academic workers developed their own creative forms of mutual aid to keep their colleagues fed every day. Committees formed across all UC campuses to distribute food, using donations from supportive allies and local restaurants or crowdsourced funds towards the purchase and cooking of meals. This menu comes from the “Kitchen Committee” at UCLA, which served meals to the picket line stationed outside of Bunche Hall. As members of the Kitchen Committee described, not only did they provide daily lunches for graduate student workers throughout the strike campaign, in the process, they constructed new systems of collective care and support rooted in solidarity.
This menu– as well as many others from the Bunche Hall picket line– are part of the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection, part of the Wayne State Reuther Library.
In this excerpt of a 1995 speech on multi-union organizing strategy, David Sickler recounts the changing relationship between immigrant workers and organized labor in southern California and identifies some of the mistakes unions have made in their approach to immigrant workers. As the Regional Director for the AFL-CIO and head of the Los Angeles-Orange County Organizing Committee (LAOCOC), Sickler launched the California Immigrant Workers Association (CIWA) to organize undocumented workers into unions. This speech was delivered at the UCLA Labor Center.
Now I’m somebody who’s tried to organize immigrant workers in this town for 20 years. We’ve had some success here and there, but the movement’s never been able to prove to immigrant workers that it could deliver. That it could put its money where its mouth was.
Immigrant workers have always agreed with us philosophically. They know we’re advocates; they know we’re on their side. But they’ve been reluctant to get on board with us on a large scale because they’ve watched our failures. They know that some of our own unions in the past, when they’d go out and organize companies that had immigrant workers, if those workers went on strike and the employer replaced them with other immigrant workers, the union would call the INS and have the scab workers deported. The employer would then call the INS and have the strikers deported. That’s a great deal for immigrant workers. Welcome! Welcome to the institutions of the United States. But the labor movement changed its act in the 70s and the 80s, and we aren’t doing those kinds of things any more. Still, these workers just weren’t sure we could deliver. What happened with the signing of the Justice for Janitors contract sent shockwaves through the immigrant community in Southern California. It will never be the same, ever. Because about six months after the signing of that contract, 900 workers at American Racing Equipment in Rancho Domingas-and I’m telling you it’s 100 percent immigrant-staged a five-day walkout.
Now, I’m an organizer. I’m gonna tell you, 900 workers do not spontaneously walk out of a plant. There’s some leadership in there somewhere. There’s some organizing going on. You hear about hot-shop organizing? This was a super, super red-hot shop. These people organized themselves. And, of course, this is a classic example of how we as a movement respond. The day after 900 workers at American Racing Equipment go out on the street in a wildcat by themselves, 97 unions are out there with their jackets and their leaflets. “Join us; I’m with the Office Workers!” “Join us; I’m with CWA!” “Join us; I’m with the Steel workers!” “Join us; I’m with the IUE!” “Join us; we’re with UAW!”
“People wanted to change things so bad they organized themselves and went into the street.”
David Sickler and Jose De Paz appeal to fellow union leaders to continue funding the California Immigrant Workers Association.
Launched in 1989, the California Immigrant Workers Association (CIWA) supported a number of break-through union campaigns with immigrant workers. David Sickler, regional director for the AFL-CIO, conceived of CIWA as a way to funnel support for the many organizing drives that developed in the wake of the Immigration Reform and Control Act. CIWA staff provided legal and organizing aid to immigrant workers and connected them with unions, and advised unions on organizing best practices. However, in the spring of 1994 national leaders of the AFL-CIO decided to stop funding the program. In this memo, Sickler and CIWA staffer Jose De Paz appeal to southern California union leaders to help fund CIWA. The demise of CIWA came just months before immigrant rights groups and unions scrambled to fight the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 in the November 1994 election. View the document.
From the UNITE HERE Local 11 Records, Box 17 Folder 6, UCLA Library Department of Special Collections.
Baker, Bob. “Unions Try Bilingual Recruiting: A Handful of Aggressive Local Organizers Are Making Unprecedented Efforts to Replenish Their Ranks with Immigrant Workers, Especially Latinos. So Far, the Strategy Is Paying Off.” Los Angeles Times (1923-1995); Los Angeles, Calif., March 25, 1991. https://search.proquest.com/hnplatimes/docview/1638431258/abstract/23F841F81AA34934PQ/360.
