I didn't run on this slate, I remained a rank-and-file member, but I did publically support them. Also, I'm still not sure who exactly wrote up the ebaord.fun website, but I generally think its a good idea to not do thinks anonymously - unless there is an issue of safety, like whisteblowing or antifa etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you probably have heard our union is holding vacancy elections Tuesday and Wednesday this week, for positions on the statewide executive board. Voting will be taking place on the Davis campus from 10-6 on Tuesday by the MU and 10-6 Wednesday by the SIlo.
I hope you will consider voting for the CLEW (collective liberation for education workers) slate of candidates. https://www.clew-uc.org
You may know that back in 2011 a reform slate took power in our union after many rank-and-file members were upset by a union that: 1. Was not involved in the fight for public education when the UC student movement erupted in 2009-2010. 2. Negotiated a contract in just 2 months over the summer that only secured a 2% pay raise each year for 3 years (effectively a pay cut if you count inflation) and argued that members didn’t want a raise because they thought that would be selfish given the state’s budget cuts to the UC. Furthermore, these particular grievances were exacerbated by the bureaucratic and top-down nature of our local, where the executive board and particularly the president had all the say. Campuses didn’t have autonomy or their own budget to pursue organizing in conditions that they best understood. The President and the financial Secretary held year-round 100% appointments, meaning these “leaders” made more than double what the average UC TA made. After AWDU came to power they enacted many reforms to decentralize/democratize power. Campuses have final say as to how they organize on the local conditions that they know best, and they are supported so by control over a campus budget. The Joint Council - the largest representative body in our union - was given priority in decision making over the executive board. The e-board simply saw itself as doing the necessary day-to-day support work that the larger democratic bodies - the Joint Council, the vote by rank-and-file members in referendums like our BDS vote, and the local campus units - decided on.
When I got here right after AWDU took power in 2011 I saw that the “union” before AWDU was basically only a union on paper- a skeleton crew of people ran things and there was a total lack of participation. AWDU majorly increased participation/involvement. I have seen the core number of organizers just at Davis grow from about 5-6 to about 15-20 with an ever increasing periphery of people involved from a a diversity of departments. We have built a union from the ground up - because a union is just a network of people, it is a collective project. The first AWDU bargaining team held open bargaining for the first time in our local’s history - previously you and I as a rank-and-file members had no right to observe or participate in these negotiations. We even went on strike twice, for the first time in about 10 years. We have been involved in grassroots campaigns fighting for social justice, and we made history as the first major union in the US to officially join the BDS movement, and to call for the AFL-CIO to kick police unions out of its ranks.
However, the impending Supreme Court decision (Janus v. AFSCME) which has the potential to make the entire US public sector a union busting “right-to-work” sector, is now being used by many unions to push what is basically neoliberal austerity measures. Power is being reconsolidated in top-down fashion, money is being shifted from fighting various forms of oppression to just signing up members in order to maintain financial health, and metrics like union membership are driving all decision-making much like how standardized test scores drive neoliberal education decisions.
This election is only for a small number of positions in our local, however I think it is a temperature check to see what direction our union will lean. Will we adopt the business union practices that pragmatic neoliberal union leaders have been pushing or will we stand firm against adopting this logic and these practices? Some members (not me) wrote up a post about some concerns along these lines about some of the other candidates in the other slate (OSWP). https://e-bored.fun
Apologies for the long email, but I wanted to give enough background info that I felt was necessary for this election. Whoever you vote for I hope you vote this Tuesday or Wednesday.
Solidarity,
Duane
No comments:
Post a Comment