UC graduate students, service workers call for strike

By Kara Guzman
Santa Cruz Sentinel

SANTA CRUZ — The University of California service workers union, nurses union and graduate student union are calling for a system-wide one-day strike on Wednesday.

At UC Santa Cruz, about 550 patient care and service workers and 620 graduate student workers are union members.

UCSC spokesman Jim Burns said the university is unsure how Wednesday’s strike will impact campus operations, but he advises students and professors to talk in advance and make plans.

Similarly, staff should talk to managers in advance, he said.

UCSC will post updates on its website — ucsc.edu/advisory — on Wednesday.

The service workers union, AFSCME 3299, announced its unfair labor practice strike Friday.

AFSCME spokesman, Todd Stenhouse, said the crux of the issue is safety.

“We have skeleton crews in a lot of departments,” Stenhouse said. “In a health care delivery environment, I don’t have to tell you how reckless and dangerous that is.”

“When we’ve spoken up about it, we’ve faced a systematic campaign of illegal intimidation from UC administrators,” Stenhouse said.

The graduate student union, UAW, announced its intention to join the strike Wednesday night.

Brahinsky said UC graduate student workers experience the same problems. At UC Santa Cruz, 99 percent of graduate student leaders voted to support AFSCME’s strike, he said.

“We’re a labor movement,” said Brahinsky. “In a labor movement you take care of each other.”

In a statement last Friday, the UC Vice President for Systemwide Human Resources, Dwaine Duckett wrote he was disappointed AFSCME was putting patient care in the middle of a labor dispute.

“The union should not use our patients and students as bargaining chips,” Duckett wrote.

[Source]: Santa Cruz Sentinel