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March to the State Capitol

Striking academic workers march on the California capitol building in Sacramento during the 2022-23 strike.

The University of California is one of the largest public universities in the United States and the third largest employer in the state. As a result, when UC workers go on strike, the state government can become a crucial point of leverage. Many state legislators, particularly those who serve districts where the UC’s campuses are located, believe strongly in the university’s public mission. During the UAW Fair UC Now Campaign, academic workers sought to challenge the notion that the UC was living up to that public mission in multiple ways as a means to win support from those legislators for their bargaining demands. They sent letters and petitions to legislative offices, lobbied for increased workplace protections, and as captured here, marched on the capitol itself. On Dec. 5, UAW members from UC Davis and other campuses descended on the state capitol building in Sacramento, continuing their march to the Offices of the UC President nearby. They called on state legislators to use their influence to ensure that the UC bargain in good faith and pay all of its employees a livable wage.

Photos from this action, as well as many others, are part of the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection, part of the Wayne State Reuther Library.

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Ratification Vote Chart

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.

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Daily Picket Debrief

UAW strike leader Sammy Feldblum addresses picketers in front of UCLA’s Bunche Hall. A blue and gold banner demanding “Livable WAGES” hangs from the window in the teaching assistants’ office.

This photo was donated by Sammy Feldblum, a participant in the UC UAW Labor Summer Program who contributed to the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Collection. As Feldblum described, the significance of the image was in capturing the challenges of trust-building and communication. As he wrote:

“I chose this photo not because I am the one with the megaphone, but instead because it gestures toward one of the great difficulties of union democracy: the ability to convey evolving information between rank-and-file and leadership, to effectively channel the union’s collective will. Our strike spanned nine campuses, and included some 48,000 workers: collective action comprised both organizing our particular corners of campus and coordination across campuses and the state. This picture, by UCLA anthropologist Nicole Smith, shows an end-of-day consultation within our picket line, in which we considered strategy and mood. By strike’s end, a congress of leaders from each department gathered to facilitate information sharing from the picket line to the bargaining table and back; before that, though, difficulties in communication were felt at times as a lack of attentiveness to rank-and-file priorities.”

“Union democracy is a dynamic thing: the strength of this strike depended on the widespread mobilization of membership cultivated by actions in the preceding years, and the strike in turn proffered new experiences, activations, and insights to inform the struggles ahead. Perhaps my holding the microphone is then in fact illustrative: far from a seasoned unionist before the strike, I, like so many others, found myself newly thrust into vexed situations with material stakes and unclear outcomes, and nothing to do about it but think hard with my comrades about how to proceed as the tides roiled all around us.”

Photos from this picket line, as well as many others, are part of the UAW Fair UC Now 2022 Campaign Collection, part of the Wayne State Reuther Library.

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Waiting for COLA Strike Meme

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.

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Strike Kitchen Menu

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.