📷r/ucla•Posted by u/Glass-Noodles-7514 hours ago

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/19/qgou-d19.html

Several rank-and-file committees have formed in reaction to the UAW and BTs caving in on the COLA demand, accommodations for students with disabilities, and so many other issues. The UC Rank-and-File Strike Committee just posted this latest statement also calling for a "No" vote, but we are also calling for turning outward to the greater working class by sending delegations to call for unity with railroad workers, longshore workers, teachers, health care workers and many more. The UAW is trying to isolate and defeat this strike--Break the isolation.

California is the bluest of the blue states. To win these just demands requires a fight against the Democratic Party, which has controlled state and local governments forever. The Board of Regents is constituted by whoever the governor is at the time and all his appointees. Starting with Newsom, every Regent is a multimillionaire Democratic operative, and this is a long tradition.

Over the past several decades, they have dismantled the California Master Plan from the 60s, which set up the UC, CSU and community college systems. This was the crown jewel of the state and model for the rest of the country. If you had the grades, you could go to any UC or CSU or community college for free. That was transformed starting in the 70s and 80s to where higher ed is now an institution not really for higher learning primarily; it is more about making higher ed profitable.

The Board of Regents is tasked with increasing the profitability of the world renown UC brand. How do they do that? By driving down the wages and living conditions of all its workers, especially the highly trained graduate student workers, to poverty levels. In this process, the unions have been instrumental. First, they're very skillful at appearing militant and allowing the rank and file to vent for a while, and then they systematically isolate and impose rotten contracts upon the very people who pay their dues to them.

The Democrats do not represent the interests of the working class, as we were told to believe. The rich have two parties, and the unions work as their labor subcontractors and police. We need to form independent rank-and-file committees against the union bureaucracies, to state and fight for the needs of the working class. This comes into direct conflict with the profit system.

I am including here an extremely important article: "Who is the University of California mediator, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg?"

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/17/stei-d17.html

If you agree with our program, join the UC Rank-and-File Strike Committee.