September 5, 2023
To our comrades at UAW 2865:
We write as the graduate student membership of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO), AFT-MI Local 3550, AFL-CIO at the University of Michigan to stand in solidarity with academic workers facing professional and academic retaliation within the University of California system.
The use of private police to detain workers at their homes is an extreme escalation in the UC’s ongoing campaign of retaliation against union activity. Similar instances of the misuse of private police in attempts to repress union activity were experienced at the University of Michigan during the course of our most recent strike. This is an alarming trend. Retaliation of this kind is an infringement of workers’ contractual rights and their fundamental rights to protest and free speech.
This pattern of retaliation and attempts at worker intimidation cannot be allowed to proceed unchallenged. We stand with the graduate workers at UC San Diego in demanding that the legal and student conduct charges being weaponized against student organizers be dropped in full. Likewise, we call upon fellow academic unions and organizing bodies to condemn such retaliatory practices.
Signed,
Graduate Employees’ Organization, AFT-MI Local 3550
Comments are closed