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Written by Worker\u2019s Voice East Bay<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n We are La Voz de los Trabajadores\/Workers\nVoice, a revolutionary socialist organization seeking to build a mass movement\nof the working class that is militant and democratic, in order to win material\ngains and expand political and civil rights. Many of our members have been\nactivists in UAW 2865 and were part of the founding of\nAWDU. In leadership and rank-and-file roles, we\u2019ve been part of the\nfight for this union to become and remain a militant and democratic organ of\nworking class struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n We believe the spirit and some\nof the major democratic reforms and militant strategy implemented by the AWDU\ncaucus since 2011 are in great danger. The conservative turn of the present UAW\n2865 leadership is now undeniable. The way the last contract negotiation was conducted\nand the hesitation around issuing a statement on the massacre in Gaza in May\n2018 are indicators of it. For these reasons we have resigned from our\nleadership positions in the union and gone to do work again among the rank and\nfile, to re-build a militant union from below.<\/p>\n\n\n In order to propose a way forward in\n2865, it\u2019s extremely important to analyze the factors leading up to the\nsettlement of an inadequate contract with the UC. We offer this analysis to\nallies who are interested in a critical socialist perspective on the contract\ncampaign. <\/p>\n\n\n Although the conservative leadership of\n2865 has thrown away the biggest opportunity to mobilize and become strong\nthrough the fight for a fair contract, we see there are still many\nopportunities to build our strength. We fundamentally disagree that the right\nmove is to leave the union, and are vehemently against attempts to destroy our\nunion, as this move would seriously setback the partial gains we\u2019ve made\nthrough hard struggle for union recognition in the past, and return all\nworker\u2019s to the status of \u201cat-will\u201d, with little to no workplace protections or\neven the enforced right to organize. We disagree with the current leadership\nand the bureaucratic way the contract was settled, but that doesn\u2019t mean we\nshould jump ship into the ocean of sharks. We must take the ship back, and we\nbelieve there needs to be a strong third current in the union that is\nadvocating to build a base for reform, one that opposes the conservative\nleaders and believes in fighting for the union, not destroying it as some have\nshortsightedly advocated.<\/p>\n\n\n Since early 2017, many in the leadership\nof the union, including members of our organization, advocated an organizing\nplan that utilized full-time paid staff to build membership as well as the\nestablishment of organizing committees to increase the militancy and active\ncapacity of the membership. This was done explicitly in preparation for the\nimpending Janus v AFSCME<\/em> Supreme\nCourt case ruling. Union leaders had the analysis that the only way to survive\na federal \u201cright-to-work\u201d law would be not to weaken the union\u2019s militancy, but\nto strengthen it by building the membership to a majority (at the launch of the\norganizing program, statewide membership was approximately 36%). A union\nmajority is an important goal for any militant, democratic union and for a mass\nmovement for socialism. A union majority reflects the fact that most workers in\na worksite have heard about their union and receive important communications\nfrom their union. A union majority means most workers in a worksite can vote\nand run in union elections. However, we must also, at the same time, ask\nourselves what we are motivating this majority for<\/em>; what are we motivating this majority to do?<\/p>\n\n\n By way of answering these questions, many\nelected leaders and rank-and-file activists also considered conducting a\npolitical strike that would make clear to workers that they need unions now\nmore than ever. Here is a key political difference that was not fully drawn out\nwhen it emerged – some in leadership did not see any strike other than a\nsupermajority strike at each of the UC campuses as a successful strike.<\/p>\n\n\n We wanted to show that our union is not\nthe weak \u2018bureaucratic business\u2019 union that instead of fighting for workers\u2019\nneeds waits under the wings of the national UAW collecting paychecks. Through\nthis plan, functional organizing committees were established on almost all\ncampuses, and the membership increased more than 20%in 9 months. The intention of the contract campaign was to expand\nthe power and material gains achieved by the Academic Workers for a Democratic\nUnion reform efforts of 2014. With the contract set to expire on June 30th of\n2018, our Union would be poised to take our 55% membership and prepare for a\nmilitant strike. In May, members of AFSCME 3299, UAW 2865, and UPTE-CWA 9119,\nall posed to strike during the fall quarter together, convened at a Strike\nForum to discuss the need and possibility of a synchronized strike. <\/p>\n\n\n Amazingly, only two weeks later a push\nwas made from the exact same leaders to settle a contract in the summer if the\nUC were to make an offer \u201cwe couldn\u2019t refuse\u201d, though the material nature of this\noffer was not disclosed. At an Organizing Committee meeting on June 27, the\nleading staff field organizer Michael McCown argued to the member leaders that\nthey should begin preparations for settling a contract, because the UC was\ngoing to make \u201can offer we couldn\u2019t refuse\u201d, that we were too weak to build for\na real fight. Rather than consulting the rank-and-file through forums,\nmeetings, or mass actions, the leadership chose to consult the talking heads of\nlabor struggle and conservative staff of the UAW International (who were\nactively against the AWDU reform caucus, and employs the same business union\nmodel at the national level). At the following bargaining session in July, an\nartificial crisis was created within the Bargaining Team, in which this same\nsmall sector of leadership pressured the team to immediately settle for a\ncontract that did not offer a wage increase, affordable housing, and made\nconcessions on virtually every anti-oppression demand, such as defenses from\nharassment and police. Fortunately, the activists of our party, alongside many\ninsurgents of the rank-and-file who immediately came to the same conclusion,\nswiftly composed and circulated a petition against settling in this moment.\nThrough this organizing, the team was forced not to settle, and because of\nthis, we won an extension of the contract to August 20, thus retaining our\nability to grieve contract violations to arbitration for another 2 months.<\/p>\n\n\n During the period between this extension\nand the new expiration time, the concessionary sector of leadership began to\npropagate their idea of settling for a concessionary contract through blogging,\npersonal attacks on social media, and even official resources such as staff and\nunion channels. At the bargaining at UC Riverside at the start of August, the\nUC made their magnanimous \u201cfinal offer\u201d: a 4 year contract with a 3% wage\nincrease each year; no language around affordable housing (ostensibly the\nstrongest economic demand for workers living in a deep housing crisis), no\nlanguage around ICE protections for undocumented workers or de-militarization\nof campus police, despite that 80% of members ranked \u201cdemilitarization\u201d as a\nhighest priority demand in our bargaining survey. Considering that the\ninflation rate in CA is currently 3.9%[1], this so-called offer is actually a\nwage cut.<\/p>\n\n\n We have clear evidence that the road to\nthe concessionary contract was undemocratic. First of all, there was a push to\nsettle the contract from a sector of the leadership when the vast majority of\nthe membership had not even been present on the campuses for three months,\nmaking it impossible for most rank-and-file to have a thorough understanding of\nthe bargaining situation. After the July bargaining, the bargaining team agreed\nto field a Straw Poll, which was supposedly to survey membership on whether\nthey were ready to ratify the contract. First, the straw poll was riddled with\ntechnical issues, and rushed through a 3-day voting period in order to\nlogistically accommodate the timeline that the bureaucratic section of\nleadership had already decided through a side-bar with management; to move to a\nratification vote. Dozens of members reported never having received the straw\npoll vote. The language confused rank-and-file members as to what they were\nvoting for, and was written by leaders of the pro-settlement sector in order to\nbias members toward voting for ratification. <\/p>\n\n\n The pro-settlement sector of the\nleadership was just warming up with these shady tactics for the following week\nwhen the ratification vote would take place. The language of the ratification\nvote encouraged members to vote Yes to ratify the contract, stating plain and\nclear that the \u201cmajority of the bargaining team recommends a Yes vote\u201d and that\nto vote No \u201cwould risk all the gains that the bargaining team had won up until\nthis point\u201d. Official union resources, including social media channels and even\nthe field staff, were used to promote the Yes Vote and to demean and slander\nthe No Vote. In addition to official union resources, the pro-settlement sector\nheavily utilized blogs and social media to make disgusting personal attacks on\nanyone who was against the weak contract. The pro-settlement campaign not only\nmanipulated the vote to favor their perspective, but they completely lied about\nthe deep divisions within the leadership and the consequences of voting No. As\nthe straw poll and bargaining team members can attest, the union\u2019s leaders and\nmembership were deeply divided on whether to settle for the weak contract, and\nthose against the settlement were not a small minority, but half of the team.\nAdditionally, it\u2019s a total fabrication that the so-called \u201cgains\u201d made at the\nbargaining table would be risked; California labor law protects bargaining\nworkers from \u201cregressive bargaining\u201d, or in other words, the UC\u2019s final offer\nwould still stand, and workers would have had more to gain by entering into\nimpasse. <\/p>\n\n\n In an email chain in which one field\nstaff expressed they were deeply disturbed by the rigging of the Yes vote, a\nleader of the settlement campaign (who is incidentally the field staff\nsupervisor), documents making a personal phone call to the staffer to ensure\nthat they understood no wrongdoing had been committed by the pro-settlement\ncampaign. Later in the thread, another bargaining team member admitted that\ntheir misuse of union resources could be a legal liability, and that they were\nindeed presenting a biased vote to members. Given\nthe overtly undemocratic nature of the ratification vote and the evidence of\nmisuse of official union resources to promote the Yes Vote, we reiterate the\ncall for a formal investigation by an independent accountability committee of\nrank-and-file members into this matter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n These undemocratic maneuvers,\nconservative misinformation, personal attacks, and demobilizing strategy from a\nsection of leaders in the UAW 2865 are the exact dynamics that the AWDU reform\ncaucus had to combat in the 2014 contract campaign. Though throughout the\ncontract campaign, multiple sectors of the union\u2019s leadership made claims to\nthe Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU) legacy, it\u2019s not difficult\nto see who is acting in the role of the conservative Admin caucus. Having\nreached impasse in 2014 with a 45% membership, against a red-baiting propaganda\ncampaign from the UAW International claiming that a strike would be a\u00a0 disaster for the union, the AWDU caucus\nshowed the masses of rank-and-file that the most effective way to make real\ngains against management was to confront them through a strike. Between the UC\nmanagement\u2019s so-called final offer and the strike in 2014, it was management\nwho conceded to us an additional 9% increase in salary because we exercised the\npower of the strike.<\/p>\n\n\n For us as socialists, we understand the\nunion as a class organization to fight for increasing our material gains and\ndemocratic rights, but it is a muscle that\u2019s only as strong as its exercised.\nWhen the defeatist arguments are used to bias the members toward accepting a\nweak contract, our members not only lost wages and accessing affordable\nhousing, we more broadly lost the opportunity to strengthen ourselves through\nthe democratic fight for a better contract. We lost the\u00a0 members who can be signed up during a strike,\nwe lost the organizational capacity that comes from building strike committees,\nstrike forums, pickets, and solidarity actions with other unions. We see this\nconcessionary contract as a major setback both materially and organizationally,\nas well as a setback from the democratic reforms made by the AWDU caucus since\n2011. Additionally, we see the misuse of staff to push for the settlement\ncampaign as an abuse of the current leadership\u2019s power that must be deeply\ninvestigated by the membership.<\/p>\n\n\n In the era of Janus<\/em>, our unions should not be giving in to conservative\ntendencies that abandon our most basic needs when management snaps its fingers,\nthat weaken our union\u2019s power through demobilization and defeatism. We need\nunions that fight, we need democratic leadership that does not lie and utilize\npersonal attacks against their enemies. Most of all, we need strong\nrank-and-file activists that will forward our demands as workers through our\nunion, in spite of the leadership which has left us in a worse position to\norganize than before. We believe that we should continue to build a militant,\ndemocratic base for reforming our union in the Organizing Committees and other\nOC-like bodies that\u00a0 spring up, and that\nwe should focus on the spaces which were marginalized during the recent\ncontract campaign: the People of Color Caucuses, the campaign for affordable\nhousing, and campaigns to build solidarity with the other striking unions on\ncampus, namely AFSCME 3299, who will strike again during the Fall.<\/p>\n\n\n The current contract does nothing to\naddress access to affordable housing for UC workers, demilitarization of campus\npolice and the expulsion of ICE from our campuses, nor does it address\ndivestment of UC funds from prisons and fossil fuel companies, nor privatization\nof campus resources, issues that are only worsening in the broader national\nclimate. The way forward is to keep building our strength through these\ncampaigns with a clear political program that centers rank-and-file militancy,\nfights for the leadership of the union, and utilizes true democratic power, not\nshady and illicit manipulations, to win gains for ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n Onward to a militant, democratic UAW\n2865!<\/p>\n\n\nHow to Combat the Janus Offensive<\/h2>\n\n\n
What Happened During the Contract\nNegotiation: A Top-Down and Concessionary Strategy<\/h2>\n\n\n
Our\nTasks Ahead<\/h2>\n\n\n