UC Davis student workers join strike over handling of pro-Palestinian encampments

Hundreds of researchers and teaching assistants at UC Davis began striking Tuesday over the University of California system’s response to pro-Palestinian protests. 

Chanting “union power” and “from the river to the sea, end UC complicity,” the workers joined colleagues at UCLA and UC Santa Cruz in rolling strikes for alleged unfair labor practices. 

All are members of UAW Local 4811, which represents academic workers across the UC system. The union chapter opposes how the system has called on police to arrest union members participating in pro-Palestine encampment demonstrations at UCLA and UC San Diego. It also claims the university unilaterally changed employee workplace speech policies without bargaining with the union. 

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Ximena Anleu Gil is the vice president of the union chapter and a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis. Although members at the campus haven’t faced disciplinary action for supporting Palestine, Anleu Gil said it’s important to show solidarity. 

“Injury to one is an injury to all and so when our coworkers are under attack, we’re going to stand up statewide,” Anleu Gil said. 

Emily Weinetraut, a teaching assistant and graduate student researcher, said UC Davis workers are also affected by the system-wide policy change requiring arrested students and employee protesters to go through a disciplinary process. 

The strike comes just over a week before finals begin on June 7 and three weeks after students set up an encampment on the Memorial Union quad to call for divestment from Israel. Some of the UAW members have participated in the encampment, named the Popular University for the Liberation of Palestine. 

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Stanford McConnehey, a media liaison for the encampment who graduated from UC Davis’s law school earlier this month, said the Popular University supports the strike. 

“Throughout the strike, we’re gonna have faculty members, grad students, scholars from other universities coming to teach us on various topics and really ultimately all with the aim toward educating ourselves so that we can educating others and stop this ongoing genocide,” McConnehey said. 

Between 175 and 250 people stay at the encampment on any given night, McConnehey said, and more visit during the day. Whether the encampment continues after the quarter ends on June 13 depends on how negotiations with the university go, he said.

Workers voted to be on strike until June 30 and call on the UC system to negotiate before then.