On Tuesday, April 20th, Lou Pisano, the head of the UW bargaining team, wrote an e-mail to "leaders"--ie management, department chairs, deans, etc, encouraging them to terminate workers who take un-approved vacation time, and in other ways encouraging retaliation against workers who may strike May 3rd. The letter contained mis-information, and UW SWC responded. See the letter below. After the jump, you can see his e-mail as well.
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April 28th 2010
To all Workers and Students of the University of Washington,
On May 3rd, after over a year of struggles against privatization, students, workers and concerned members of the community will be striking against the budget cuts, tuition increases, and attacks to the standard of living of workers at the university. This action is organized by the Student Worker Coalition, a diverse group of undergrads and graduate students, teachers and research assistants, custodians, skilled trades workers and professional staff, alumni and members of the community that have united to act in solidarity for affordable, quality education and workers rights on campus. The May 3rd Campus Strike is a struggle not only for student demands but also for worker demands such as no layoffs, no extra work, no cuts to the custodian swingshift, no outsourcing/union busting, and no management harassment/ retaliation.
We know workers face many challenges which make it difficult to participate in this movement. For example, the UW Police Department recently attempted to spy on our strike committee meeting by sending an undercover cop posing as a union supporter. We exposed her and in the media controversy that followed, UW spokesman Norm Arkans claimed that the UW administration is against the police spying on student groups. However, he mentioned nothing about workers. The Strike Committee is also a worker organization and the UWPD’s actions are a violation of workers’ right to organize. It is only the most recent example of a pattern of UWPD harassment of workers including surveillance during custodian break time organizing meetings and at clock stations as well as the arrest of two women of color journalists who were interviewing custodians about poor working conditions in Health Sciences. Despite this harassment, the movement against the privatization of the university--both as a place to work, and a place to learn-- has built serious momentum.
On April 21, 2010, Lou Pisano, Assistant Vice President of Labor Relations at UW, wrote an email addressed to "leaders" (that is, managers), stating that "employees who decide to participate [in the Campus Strike] by taking an unapproved, unscheduled absence from work may be subject to discipline...up to and including the termination of employment from the University."
Pisano's email is both misleading and desperate. Contrary to his claim, there is no clear provision in state law forbidding public workers to strike----nor is there a provision expressly allowing it. Washington State law is ambiguous with regard to whether public employees have a legal right to strike. Public employees DO often strike ---and succeed. Teachers and Metro drivers have gone on strike, and WFSE, SEIU, and academic student employees on campus all went on strike in 2001.
Further, contrary to Pisano’s claims, any individual employee who joins the strike on May 3 doesn't violate the no-strike clause in the union contracts, since this clause refers to the unions themselves calling a strike. It is also important to recognize that the State of Washington has repeatedly violated state workers’ contracts by denying cost of living increases and threatening furloughs and health care cuts. Why do workers have to follow the contract but management doesn’t?
Pisano’s letter shows that UW administrators are scared of the powerful student-worker solidarity that has been built the past year. UW administrators know its potential to unite similarly affected sectors of campus against privatization, and Pisano’s letter is an example of how they are trying to break up these coalitions.
On May 3, the UW campus will be striking together. Students will be setting up picket lines at the main campus entrance at 15th and 40th, and we will set up lines at other entrances if we have enough people. We may also have roving picket lines at various worksites throughout campus. UAW local 4121 may officially strike or rank-and-file UAW members may unofficially walk out to protest the layoffs of hundreds of TAs and the large class sizes that will result. WFSE local 1488 and SEIU local 925 both passed resolutions supporting the UAW and reminding their members of their right not to cross the picket lines of another union or employee organization for safety reasons.
We know from talking with many workers in a variety of sectors that you would like to join us on the picket lines May 3rd. We know that you recognize that no fight can be won alone--that solidarity among all workers is necessary for the movement to grow and victories to be won. We are humbled by your willingness to not cross the picket lines as long as students and workers are striking, and we pledge that we will support you with follow up protests if management threatens to fire you for making this choice.
And when the time comes for you to strike and fight for your right for a fair contract, or safe working conditions, or a wage that will support your children’s' educations and healthy upbringings, you can count on our support.
Join the May 3 strike, for wages, job security, benefits, and accessibility to higher education.
In Solidarity,
UW Student Worker Coalition
Open Letter to Workers
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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Letters of Support Pour in!
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Hi All,
The UW Student Worker Coalition and Strikers have received numerous letters of Support!! Many many thanks to all those who wrote in.
Click on the links below to see each one!
NEW! Letter from Cesare Casarino, Faculty of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota
Letter from Silvia Federici, Faculty Emerita, HOFSTRA University, member of Midnight Notes collective and Edu-Factory Collective
Letter from George Caffentzis, Faculty at University of Southern Maine, member Midnight Notes Collective and Edu-Factory Collective
Letter from Jeffrey J. Williams, Professor of English and of Literary and Cultural Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, Editor, the minnesota review
Letter from Therese Quinn, Associate Professor of Art Education, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Letter from Academic Workers for A Democratic Union from California, UAW members
Follow-Up Press Release regarding Police
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Thursday, April 22, 2010
April 22, 2010
Nobudgetcutsuw.blogspot.com
Police Infiltration of Student Group Just the Latest in Ongoing Harassment by the UWPDOn April 8, plainclothes UW police officer Tanesha Van Leuven infiltrated and participated in a student organization meeting to plan a campus strike on May 3. The action will include all-day picket lines beginning at 8am at 15th & 40th, and an 11am picnic with picketers.
In an interview with KIRO, UW Police Commander Jerome Solomon openly admitted the infiltration, stating, "We saw that they were having an open meeting and we sent an officer in plain clothes." Solomon confirmed that the plainclothes officer did not identify herself as law enforcement. The Student Worker Coalition welcomes the administration's recognition that the UW Police Department's conduct was unacceptable. Associate Vice President Norm Arkans correctly notes, "When something like this happens, it erodes trust among elements in our community."
The administration is incorrect, however, to suggest that the incident represents an isolated "error in judgment." Police intimidation of student and worker activists occurs routinely on campus. Although the administration may oppose police intimidation on paper, the University has condoned the UWPD's ongoing and systematic harassment of campus activists, despite longstanding and well-publicized efforts by ourselves and other activists to hold campus police accountable to the university community.
Coalition members have made it clear to the University administration that police intimidation was unacceptable since the UWPD first began to target us in 2009. The University has failed to act on these complaints, meaningfully hold the UWPD accountable, or implement police accountability structures to receive and investigate complaints about the UWPD.
In September of 2009, two activist journalists, both women of color, were arrested by the UWPD for criminal trespass and spent a night in jail after interviewing custodians in the Health Sciences Building about their working conditions. Real Change News covered the arrests and coalition member group Democracy Insurgent wrote a statement condemning the arrests, but the University failed to take action.
From September 2009 to January 2010, UWPD surveilled and harassed custodians organizing against unsafe and abusive working conditions on an ongoing basis. Campus police officers were regularly present at swingshift workers' clock-in stations in Health Sciences to question custodians about their break meetings. Dayshift workers faced similar conditions. In December, a custodian break meeting in Health Sciences organized by registered student groups International Workers and Students for Justice and UW National Lawyers Guild was disrupted by Officer Russ Sattarov, a uniformed UWPD officer. Democracy Insurgent and UW National Lawyers Guild sent an open letter to UW Custodial Services condemning this police intimidation and subsequently organized a protest when the university did not respond. A story about this action and the police intimidation that precipitated it was covered on the front page of The Daily. Again, the University failed to take action.
Anti-budget cuts organizers are not the only activists who have been targeted by the UWPD. During a May Day rally in Red Square in 2009, Officer Van Leuven--the same officer who infiltrated the SWC meeting-- was amongst UW police officers who threatened activists from Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán (MEChA) with arrest while selectively enforcing amplified sound regulations. This incident was also reported in the Daily, yet the administration did not take action.
This is far more than an "error in judgment." Police intimidation of activists is an ongoing policy and practice of the UW police department that is condoned by the UW administration. We demand that this police harassment end immediately.
We also demand that the University take steps to establish a meaningful process to hold the police accountable to our community. The administration has said it will meet with the police department to have conversations "about the kinds of things that are acceptable in our community and the kinds of things that are not." The University community has not been invited to this meeting, and the administration has not engaged us in a conversation about what police conduct is and is not acceptable. In fact, neither the UWPD nor the administration have apologized to us for the infiltration of our meeting. More importantly, the University has made no assurances that it will do anything to establish a disinterested mechanism to hold the UWPD accountable for police misconduct. As a first step, the University should issue a statement condemning and apologizing for this pattern of abuse, and must commit itself fully to establishing transparent, community oversight of the UWPD.
UW Student Worker Coalition # uwstudentworkercoalition@gmail.com
FaDU writes open letter to UAW Bargaining Team
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Wednesday, April 21, 2010
April 21, 2012
To the members of the UAW Local 4121 Bargaining Team:
As you have communicated to union membership, negotiations between the University of Washington and UAW Local 4121, representing Academic Student Employees at UW, to secure a strong and fair contract for 2010-2013, have been challenging. Since bargaining began in early March, 2010, UW management have come to the table with nothing but takeaways for some of their most essential and lowest paid employees. According to UAW 4121's bargaining updates, UW's position has changed very little, if at all, over the six weeks of bargaining since. Less than two weeks remain before ASEs' current contract expires. UW management have made it clear that they have every intention of pushing through draconian working conditions for the people who do half the university's teaching and a large amount of its research. But they've also made it clear what they fear -- that we, whose work they so depend on, will go on strike....read more HERE.
PRESS RELEASE--UWPD Infiltrate Student Organization
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Tuesday, April 20, 2010
PRESS RELEASE- For Immediate Release
April 20, 2010
Press Contacts:
Press Contacts:
UW Student Worker Coalition—uwstudentworkercoalition@gmail.com
http://nobudgetcutsuw.blogspot.com
Undercover Police Infiltrate Registered Student Organization at University of Washington
Seattle, WA-- On Thursday April 8, students, workers, and instructors welcomed an unfamiliar face to a publicly advertised meeting for a campus-wide strike May 3rd. A woman who identified herself simply as “Tani" described herself as an "alum" of UW who was passionate about the cuts. She also said that her father worked with Waste Management and she was in the meeting to find out what the May 3rd strike committee was involved in with regards to the Teamsters' recent call for a strike. "Tani" actively participated in the planning meeting for a large-scale action demanding immigrant and worker justice, student access to UW, and smaller class sizes and writing center to improve education. The following week, however, student activists accidently bumped into “Tani” again—this time, though, as Officer Tanesha van Leuven of the UWPD. We have reason to believe that Tani was sent by the University of Washington to spy on the meeting.
The University of Washington has made police infiltration and intimidation its primary tactic for retaliating against workers and activists fighting privatization at UW. In the Fall and Winter of 2009, immigrant workers faced continuous harassment from the UWPD for talking with other workers about their working conditions, clearly violating labor law. That September, two women of color journalists and activists—a childcare worker and a pre-nursing student—were arrested after interviewing immigrant women workers during their break time about the challenges they face in the workplace. With layoffs and arbitrary shift changes being enforced by custodial services, many workers have experienced inhumane amounts of extra work and speed up. UWPD officers also often harass students who choose to organize within on-campus registered student organizations while they are handing out flyers, or even just walking on campus going to class. For example, last Tuesday, while passing out flyers and talking with students, two women graduate students were approached by a bike officer of the UWPD who told them “I wish I could arrest people for no reason.” These attacks, the violence perpetrated against activists in Seattle, Portland, and Olympia, the increase in police killing of unarmed people of color, and now the covert infiltration of a student group by UWPD raise serious and alarming questions about possible violence and surveillance against students and workers at the hands of the University and its police force. Since June of 2009, workers, students, and community members have been fighting against lay-offs of immigrant workers, increases in tuition that exclude working students and students of color, cuts to quality education, and an ongoing process of privatization that favors revenue for some at the top of the university, while taking funds away from students and workers. While the university’s state budget continues to be cut, the reality is this cut is less than 3% of the total UW budget. In fact, most of the budget shortfall—$469 million—came from the university's risky investments, NOT from the cuts from the state. Since 2004, the UW Treasury has been investing in hedge funds, and hiking tuition, from $4968 in 2003 to $8800 in 2010, to back up these investments should they default. Rather than cutting from the top, and changing its spending focuses, the university continues to perpetuate the myth that tuition hikes go toward ameliorating the state cuts.
On March 4th, while over 700 students and workers were protesting budget cuts on and off campus, and many more were protesting across the country, the UW met with the UAW 4121, Academic Student Employees (ASE’s), bargaining team to start contract negotiations. At this meeting, the UW told UAW negotiators that because they opposed a tuition increase bill in the legislature in February, the University would retaliate against all ASE’s by taking away lay-off protections, increasing healthcare premiums, and firing all tutors and writing center instructors, among other take-aways. Many UAW members are pushing their elected representatives to call a strike, which was already authorized by membership, to begin the first day after contract negotiations if the University continues to bargain in bad faith. The May 3rd student strike was planned to correspond with this day, and to support custodians and other state workers facing cuts. Through its actions, the University PD has shown itself to be unaccountable to students and the UW community. It does, however, do the work of controlling student movements on behalf of the UW administration. The UWPD and the UW administration seek to curtail organizing by workers and students, but they will not succeed.
UW Student Worker Coalition # uwstudentworkercoalition@gmail.com
Sign the May 3 Strike Pledge Online
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Thursday, April 15, 2010
Pledge to join the May 3 campus strike against budget cuts, part of a month of action for labor and immigrant rights. Click here: http://nobudgetcutsuw.blogspot.com/p/may-3-strike-pledge.html
May 3rd Strike Committee Meetings - New Dates/Times
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Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The strike committee for the May 3rd campus strike is now in full-swing. We have moved from one meeting a week to two. Those meetings are now on Monday and Thursday evenings at 6pm at the UW-Seattle campus, Smith Hall 405.
The next meeting is this Thursday (4/15) at 6pm in Smith Hall 405.
Hope to see you there.
Sincerely,
Strike Committee