Though it has only just begun, 2020 is already shaping up to be a pivotal year for the labor movement, including a group of workers in Santa Cruz, CA, that started the (academic) year off with a bang. Graduate students at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) have been on strike since February 10, after months of contentious conversations with the school administration. Unlike many of their peers across the country who have been shut out of organizing, the UCSC cohort are members of United Auto Workers Local 2865, a union that has long represented graduate students in the UC system. Their current contract, which was approved by others in the UC system, was ratified in 2018, but it was initially rejected by the graduate students at UCSC. They have been organizing to try and get a better deal ever since.

Their biggest issue? The rent is too damn high, and their wages are far too low to be able to afford to live in the pricey Santa Cruz area. According to one of the strike’s organizers, Jane Komori, the vast majority of graduate student workers at UCSC spend more than 50% — and often 60 or 70% — of their wages on rent. As a result, the UCSC Graduate Student Association has been lobbying the university administration for a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of $1,412 per month since November. Those demands were unmet, so they decided to escalate: December was the beginning of a grading strike in which grad students withheld 12,000 grades at the end of the fall quarter; after they say the administration refused to meet with them, the workers decided to continue withholding grades through the entire winter semester. The Pay Us More UCSC movement was heating up.

Finally, on January 27, Chancellor Cynthia Larive provided what the workers saw as an unsatisfactory response, and things escalated further to a full strike on Monday, February 10. The workers have been walking a picket line outside the university ever since. They’ve also added two new demands: non-retaliation for strike activities, and that any budgetary allocations toward COLA must not come from increases in graduate or undergraduate tuition. The UCSC grad students have been joined by hundreds of undergraduates, as well as other staff and faculty (whose senate just voted in support of some of the COLA demands), and have received support from fellow grad students, academics, and union members across the country, including current Democratic front-runner Senator Bernie Sanders. Since their contract includes a no-strike clause, their current work stoppage is what’s known as a "wildcat" strike. They say that means that they are left without the usual union protections, like legal aid or a strike fund, and are at risk of having their pay docked, being slapped with a lawsuit, or being fired outright. These workers say the decision to go on strike anyway shows how dire their situation has become, and how much they’re struggling.

(UCSC president, Janet Napolitano, said in an open letter that acceding to the wildcat strike demands would "undercut the very foundation of an agreement negotiated in good faith by the UAW and ratified by thousands of members across the system." UCSC’s executive vice chancellor Lori Kletzer has acknowledged the economic strain caused by the housing crisis in a statement on the school’s website, and said they offered certain striking students additional financial support packages and a need-based annual housing supplement of $2,500. She said that the strike is having a "significant negative impact on the emotional well-being and academic success of our undergraduate students" and staff.)