Unions Support Student Protestors Against Campus Administrators and Police [View all]

United Auto Workers members at the University of California marched in Oakland. Attacks on campus occupations have led to unfair labor practice charges and even a strike vote. Photo: UAW Local 2865.

https://labornotes.org/2024/05/unions-support-student-protestors-against-campus-administrators-and-police

May 14, 2024 / Caitlyn Clark

As campus protests—and violent police repression—continue to roll across the country, some unions are getting involved.

More than 2,700 protesters have been arrested on 64 college campuses since the initial arrests at Columbia University in New York on April 18. Encampments have appeared at 184 campuses worldwide. The protesting students are calling for full disclosure of their universities’ finances and divestment from all financial ties to weapons manufacturers and Israel’s war on Gaza.

Unionized academic workers are demanding decision-making power over their work and what it’s used for. For instance, academic workers in the astronomy department of the University of California Santa Cruz have organized to refuse to apply for or accept funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, weapons manufacturers, and military contractors.

In an open letter published by the magazine Science for the People in January, they wrote, “UC has received $295 million in research funding from the Department of Defense in FY 2022 alone… Technology that astronomers have developed for science is being misused to surveil and target people both within and outside the U.S.”

FULL story at link above.