A Look at the GEO Strike in Michigan Fighting the University's Reopening Plan

We spoke with Amir Fleischmann of the Graduate Employee Organization, a union at the University of Michigan, about their latest strike leveraged to fight the university's reckless reopening plans amid a pandemic.

Amir provides a play-by-play of the strike, the events leading up to it and the larger context in which it occurred, and how their union was able to raise expectations and demonstrate the organic links between worker justice and social justice.

We discuss the demands of the strike, including demands to disarm and defund campus police, and take a look at the strike's mechanics and how workers were able to make their presence felt even during measures of social distancing as well as the power they were able to build among their own membership and in coalition with campus and community organizations.

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Music by:

Damaged Bug- Transmute

Wildcat Strikes at University of California w/ Shannon Ikebe & Tara Phillips

Laborwave Radio speaks with Shannon Ikebe and Tara Phillips, two striking workers at the University of California, on the power of wildcat strikes, importance of deep internal union democracy, and organizing worker insurgencies. They are the authors of the piece, The Grassroots Wildcat Strike for a COLA and the Fight for a Democratic, Militant Union.

Shannon Ikebe is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. They study social democracy and labor movements in Europe.

Tara Phillips is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of California Berkeley where she studies US and Latin American Literature in the twentieth century from a food studies perspective. She is a also an academic worker and rank and file labor organizer at UAW 2865.

Our conversation provides an update on the wildcat strike at the UC system, and largely focuses on the strategies behind the strike and rebuttals to criticisms from certain detractors. Ikebe and Phillips reject the view that a wildcat strike must conform to pseudo-scientific claims about the "physics of strikes," and largely take their inspiration for worker insurgencies from the likes of Rosa Luxemburg and her writings on the "mass strike."

"You can't calculate everything and predict the outcome in advance. You have to experiment and see what's possible for workers. In the process our movement has grown organically and exponentially, and workers expectations have been raised.

The key point is that we now have a movement that formerly we have not had. We have not won a COLA yet, but I don't think it's a defeat as some people may like to call it. I think it's an inconclusive ending for now, but the difference being that we have a movement. Also, the way in which people have a real lived experience of doing a wildcat strike, and the wildcat strike as a repertoire of tactics has become normalized as part of the things we can do. I think that was completely unimaginable in November, 2019."

Other show references:

Maximillian Alvarez, Antifascism and the Left's Fear of Taking Power, Baffler Magazine

Strike University, https://strikeuniversity.org/

Music:

Damaged Bug, Lovely Gold

#wildcatstrike #cola4all #strikeuniversity #shannonikebe #taraphillips #laborwaveradio #alexriccio #maximillianalvarez #theeohsees #damagedbug

Graduate Employee Strike at UO and Fighting for Worker Control w/ Lola Loustaunau

The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF 3544) has authorized a strike to begin on November 4, 2019 at the University of Oregon. More than 1,000 workers authorized the strike after 11 months of intense negotiations with university management.

Lola Loustaunau, a graduate employee and member of GTFF, discusses the strategy GTFF has adopted for their collective bargaining efforts, the reasons the strike has been authorized, and the broader experience these negotiations have had on fellow workers and union members.

She also provides personal insights into how public universities are using a post-Janus environment as an opportunity to try to discipline and destroy higher ed unions, and for these reasons along with many others unions need to recommit to a vision of fundamentally transforming society and ending exploitation.

We also had a brief interview with Erin Kanzig, VP of Bargaining for the Coalition of Graduate Employees (CGE 6069) about their current collective bargaining efforts and their goals in bargaining.

#gtff3544 #cge6069 #giveusanedraise #strike #1u #lolaloustaunau #alexriccio #erinkanzig #theeohsees #universityoforegon