COLA-fornia Dreaming

URGENT CALL TO ACTION: We Demand #HandsOffCarlos Now

Hey there, wildcats, this is an URGENT CALL TO ACTION! Today, Friday, Oct. 2nd, our colleague Carlos Cruz at UCSC faces a student conduct hearing grounded in arbitrary rules set by the University. We have generated a pre-populated email you can use to send to UCSC admin to demand they drop all charges against Carlos. The link will be available here and in our bios on social media. Links: Email template: http:///bit.ly/carloshearingemail Twitter & Instagram at @payusmoreucsc

Episode 03: #UCSC41 — A Conversation with Fired Cats Carlos and Daniel

Every month this podcast will highlight some of the many voices behind the UCSC wildcat strike. Since December 2019, UCSC graduate students have been striking in pursuit of a cost of living adjustment, or COLA, to lift themselves out of rent burden and address, with urgency, issues of housing and food precarity. Each episode in this series features snippets from longer oral history interviews between myself and my fellow wildcat strikers as we discuss issues ranging from their relationship to high education to the context behind their decision to join the collective fight for a cost of living adjustment. Today’s episode is part two in a special series highlighting the voices of the UCSC 41, the forty-one graduate students who were fired and blacklisted for their participation in the COLA campaign. Earlier this month, I had the immense pleasure of talking with my dear comrades Carlos Cruz and Daniel Rodriguez, two fired cats in the history department. So sit back, relax, and listen as we talk candidly about our work, our struggles, our decision participate in the COLA movement, the meaning of reinstatement, and our continued fight for UCSC to drop all discipline. This interview was recorded before a week of mediation meetings were set to begin in early August 2020, to settle one of the two Unfair Labor Practice lawsuits currently pending between, our union, UAW 2865 and the University of California. These negotiations comprised the next chapter in the fight for wildcats reinstatement and dismissal of all discipline charges. After a week of mediation, UC officials and the UAW 2865 bargaining team signed a deal that made the remaining 41 graduate students eligible to teach again. However, despite this essential victory of reinstatement, UCSC still refuses to drop some student discipline charges against undergraduates and graduates alike for taking part in non-violent direct actions on campus. Carlos Cruz, one of our interviewees in this episode, is still facing disciplinary charges. In fact, Carlos is the only graduate student singled out for discipline out of thousands of striking students. UCSC administrators targeted Carlos, a well known and essential labor leader in the Santa Cruz community, has been targeted by UCSC administrators in a way that underscores this institution’s racially discriminatory modes of operation. In the coming weeks, Carlos will appeal his two year suspension before UCSC’s student conduct board. We ask that you, our community, allies, and supporters, help us by sending an email to UCSC administrators and demanding that they drop all discipline against Carlos. Please visit this link to send an email to UCSC administrators demanding that the university drop all charges against Carlos. Link: mmequintero.netlify.app/carlos To RSVP for the Oct. 1st Cops off Campus Car + Bike Caravan action: https://tinyurl.com/abolish12 For more information about the Cops off Campus Coalition, visit their social media pages: @ucaft on Twitter, @uc_aft on IG, and search for UC Cops off Campus on Facebook. While reinstatement is a victory, our campaign for a living wage and a safe learning environment is ongoing. If you would like to donate to our strike fund to help support striking graduate students, please DM us on social media or email this podcast directly, and we can put you in touch with our donation team. And, finally, you can show your solidarity by liking, sharing, subscribing to, and reviewing our podcast. This helps people find us. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @payusmoreucsc for updates and memes. You can also visit our website at www.payusmoreucsc.com to learn more. And if you have any questions about this podcast or suggestions for content, please email us at colaforniadreaming@gmail.com Until next time, wildcats! Opening and Closing Music: "Spread the Strike" by David Rovics Background Music: "Dancing Mice (Stems Melody)" by Mica Emory

Episode 02: #UCSC41 — A Conversation with Fired Cats Brenda, Lachlan, and Natalie

Every month this podcast will highlight some of the many voices behind the UCSC wildcat strike. Since December 2019, UCSC graduate students have been striking in pursuit of a cost of living adjustment, or COLA, to lift themselves out of rent burden and address, with urgency, issues of housing and food precarity. Each episode in this series features snippets from longer oral history interviews between myself and my fellow wildcat strikers as we discuss issues ranging from their relationship to high education to the context behind their decision to join the collective fight for a cost of living adjustment. Today’s episode is the first in a special series highlighting the voices of the UCSC 41, the forty-one graduate students who remained fired and blacklisted for their participation in the COLA campaign. Mediation and arbitration are set to begin Tuesday, August 4, 2020, to settle the Unfair Labor Practice lawsuits pending between our union, UAW 2865, and the University of California. These negotiations represent the next chapter in the fight for wildcats reinstatement and dismissal of all discipline charges. This week, I had the immense pleasure of talking with my dear comrades Brenda Arjona, Lachlan Summers, and Natalie Eng, three fired cats in the anthropology department. So sit back, relax, and listen as we talk candidly about our work, our struggles, our decision participate in the COLA movement, and our need for reinstatement. If you would like to help us in our fight, please take literally 10 sec and use this link, tinyurl.com/UCSC41 to automatically send an email to UC and UCSC administrators demanding the reinstatement of students like Brenda, Lachlan, and Natalie and that the university drops all discipline against graduate students striking in pursuit of a living wage. And if you find yourself in the Bay Area, Monday, August 3rd, 2020, please join us in Santa Cruz for a socially-distant, collective direct action in solidarity with the UCSC 41. We will be meeting at the base of campus at 1 PM, begin our march at 2 PM from the base to locations to be announced on that day. We will also be holding a press conference at 3 PM. There will be other events and activities, like teach-ins and screen printing. So bring your tent and stay awhile. Follow us on social media @payusmoreucsc. And, if you can’t make it that day, tag us on social media and send us a photo/message of solidarity using the hashtag UCSC41. We encourage you to RSVP for this action at bit.ly/ucsc41. If you would like to donate to our strike fund to help support striking and fired graduate students, please DM us on social media or email this podcast directly, and we can put you in touch with our donation team. And, finally, you can show your solidarity by liking, sharing, subscribing to, and reviewing our podcast. This helps people find us. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @payusmoreucsc for updates and memes. You can also visit our website at www.payusmoreucsc.com to learn more. And if you have any questions about this podcast or suggestions for content, please email us at colaforniadreaming@gmail.com Until next time, wildcats!

Minisode 09: #HandsOffCarlos #CopsOffCampus

Every week this podcast will highlight some of the many voices behind the UCSC wildcat strike. Since December 2019, UCSC graduate students have been striking in pursuit of a cost of living adjustment, or COLA, to lift themselves out of rent burden and address, with urgency, issues of housing and food precarity. While our longer episodes in this series feature snippets from oral history interviews between myself and my fellow wildcat strikers, today’s episode is a more informal minisode dedicated to keeping our listeners up-to-date with all COLA-related news. Today’s episode consists of a special reading of three items that when considered together tie the suppression of peaceful protests with police violence and systemic racism at work at UC and UCSC in particular. The first is a reading of UCSC Wildcat Daily Sheet from May 27, 2020 titled “Hands off Carlos” that makes visible the systemic racism perpetuated by UCSC administrators against its black, brown, indigenous, and other POCs on our campus. Link to the document here: https://payusmoreucsc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/hands_off_Carlos_May_27.pdf To read the Vice article on anti-terrorist surveillance used on UCSC graduate students, click here: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kppna/california-police-used-military-surveillance-tech-at-grad-student-strike The second is another official sheet from the UCSC Wildcat Daily Sheet dated May 27, 2020 titled “Drop the Charges! Abolish the board!” that draws connections between punishments issued in the student conduct hearings against COLA activists and the Undocu Collective with both implicit and explicit use of discriminatory rhetoric ingrained in UC’s student conduct hearings and systems of discipline. Link to the document here: https://payusmoreucsc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/drop_the_charges_May_27.pdf The third, and final item, is a statement released by UCSC’s Graduate Student Association dated June 1, 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis cop that calls for UCSC and the UC system to remove cops from campuses for the safety of its students. This will admittedly be a long episode, but I hope that you stick with us to the end because these issues are important. If you are as angered by the UC’s actions as we are, we ask that you take a moment to make your anger known to UCSC admin. We call on every member of the UC community to condemn the racist student conduct system. Per the student code of conduct, the Chancellor has the ‘final authority’ on the outcome of all student conduct discipline. So show your solidarity by Emailing BOTH Chancellor Larive at chancellor@ucsc.edu and Dean of Students Naiman at gnaiman@ucsc.edu, to demand that all student conduct charges be dropped immediately. Then after you have emailed them, tag us across social media using the hashtags #HandsOffCarlos and #CopsOffCampus Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @payusmoreucsc for even more updates. If you would like to donate to our strike fund to help support striking and fired graduate students, please visit www.gofundme.com/f/support-fund-for-striking-workers-at-ucsc You can also show your solidarity by liking, subscribing, sharing, and reviewing our podcast. This helps people find us! And if you have any questions about this podcast or suggestions for content, please email us at colaforniadreaming@gmail.com Theme song: “Spread the Strike” by David Rovics. For more from him, visit his YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNvnHiMQWkL8E6382mrRx-g Background Music: “Fly back to me (Instrumental Version)” by Gloria Tells; “Goodbye So Long (Instrumental Version)” by Spring Gang, “Site Specific Memory” by Polar Nights. Creative Commons License via Epidemic Sound.

Minisode 08: Call to Action- #CALLTHEVOTE

Every week this podcast will highlight some of the many voices behind the UCSC wildcat strike. Since December 2019, UCSC graduate students have been striking in pursuit of a cost of living adjustment, or COLA, to lift themselves out of rent burden and address, with urgency, issues of housing and food precarity. While our longer episodes in this series feature snippets of longer oral history interviews between myself and my fellow wildcat strikers, today’s episode is actually an urgent call to action. Today is Tuesday May 28th and our UAW 2865 ULP bargaining team will be meeting at 3PM Pacific Standard Time to debate whether or not to call a strike authorization vote for the spring quarter. If the vote for a ULP strike passes, UC TAs will be able to withhold spring quarter grades legally and full protection against retaliation. The UAW’s Proposal for settlement includes full reinstatement of fired wildcat strikers and a raise to bring all graduate student salaries to $40,000 a year. This is the leverage we need to bring the university to the table after over six months of struggle, leverage that is not usually available to workers during a crisis. As we saw so clearly from the strike at UCSC, only the withholding of our essential labor will begin to move UC administration. The UC will not pay us enough to live or ensure the security of our positions without action. Bargaining team members need to hear from you TODAY about what a ULP strike would mean to you. It is not too late to sign the ULP strike pledge, but once you have signed you should also email all bargaining team members, many of whom are supportive of the struggle for a COLA. Emails: UAW2865@UAW2865.ORG SANTACRUZ@UAW2865.ORG BERKELY@UAW2865.ORG SANDIEGO@UAW2865.ORG MERCED@UAW2865.ORG. SANTABARBARA@UAW2865.ORG. IRVINE@UAW2865.ORG. RIVERSIDE@UAW2865.ORG. LOSANGELES@UAW2865.ORG. DAVIS@UAW2865.ORG LINK TO PLEDGE: www.payusmoreucsc.com So show your solidarity by Signing the strike pledge and emailing your bargaining team. Share this call to action with all your networks! Tag us on social media at @payusmoreucsc and let us know that you support a strike authorization vote! Let’s authorize this strike and secure a COLA for all!