Yesterday, thousands of UC academic workers took to the streets to demand living wages and a safe workplace free from harassment and bullying. While UC admin refuses a coordinated bargaining table and offers peanuts with one hand while raising campus rents with the other, UC workers are forced to live in their cars, skip meals, and suffer abuse at the hands of their supervisors.
Union members engaged in non-violent civil disobedience across the state yesterday to tell UC loud and clear: enough is enough. 26 union members were arrested in Los Angeles while sitting peacefully in the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood Blvds; nearly 150 police officers in riot gear showed up to detain them. In San Diego, 7 union members were arrested after hundreds held the intersection of Villa La Jolla Drive and La Jolla Village Drive for two hours. 600 union members held a major intersection in Berkeley; 100 union members occupied a building in Riverside; parents and caregivers organized a Stroller March at UC Santa Cruz; and hundreds more marched, rallied and demonstrated in Irvine, Santa Barbara, Davis, Merced, and San Francisco.
This does not end here. It’s time for UC to get the message: we are serious, and we are not going away until we win a Fair UC for All.