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VOLUME 144, ISSUE 9 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2022

ACADEMIC WORKERS PARTICIPATE IN UC-WIDE STRIKE FOR HIGHER WAGES, BETTER LABOR PRACTICES Unions representing teaching assistants, student researchers, academic researchers and postdoctoral students authorized the strike began on Monday BY SYDNEY AMESTOY campus@theaggie.org On Nov. 2, unions representing graduate students, teaching assistants, student researchers and postdoctoral scholars authorized a strike at all 10 UC campuses — the largest academic strike in the history of U.S. higher education. The strike officially began on Monday, with many academic workers ceasing to perform work duties related to teaching and research and instead joining picket lines across campuses to increase the visibility of the strike. On the first day of the strike, picketers blocked the intersection of Hutchinson and La Rue Rd., and lined the entrance to campus on Howard Way holding a sign that read, “Strike Means Strike: Undergrad Solidarity.” The unions, United Auto Workers (UAW) 2865, Student Researchers United (SRU-UAW) and UAW 5810, are asking for a significant pay increase from about $24,000 to $54,000, annually. This demand is in response to the rising cost of living throughout California, as 92% of graduate workers in the UC system are currently rentburdened, meaning that more than 30% of their salary goes toward rent each month. Other demands include sustainable transit benefits, smaller class sizes, equity for international scholars, disability justice and childcare benefits for working parents. As a result of the strike, there have also been disruptions to the Unitrans Memorial Union bus terminal, and according to the Unitrans website, these delays and temporary suspensions are expected to continue during picket line hours for the duration of the strike. The UC Student Body Presidents released a joint statement in solidarity with UAW on Monday, signed by the student body presidents of UC Berkeley,

UC Davis academic workers strike for fair compensation. (Kayla Bruckman / Aggie) UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, UC Merced, UC Los Angeles and UC Davis. “We acknowledge that our academic experience as students may be impacted,” the letter reads. “However, we stand in full support of actions such as class cancellations, delayed grading, and the absence of feedback on work in order to stress the importance of our workers, researchers, postdocs, teaching assistants, and graders. [...] Our union colleagues’ working conditions are our learning conditions.” Thirty-three members of the California Legislature also released a letter of support for academic workers,

urging the UC to bargain in good faith with UAW in order to support student workers and avoid further disruption to the education of UC students. “Their talent, innovation, and labor contributes greatly to the University’s mission and its ability to secure funding,” the letter from the California Legislature states. “The UC is one of the top public university systems and research institutions in the world, in no small part because of its ability to attract the most talented scholars from a wide array of backgrounds. But the UC system cannot live up to its mission and reputation if its own employees do not feel respected.”

According to UAW 2865, strike authorization votes in which union members decided whether or not to authorize a legal strike were held on UC campuses between Oct. 26 to Nov. 2. A total of 36,558 union members voted, with 98% agreeing to authorize a strike, according to the Fair UC Now website. These votes came after many meetings with UC administrations that failed to achieve the unions’ desired goals. Representatives of the unions at UC Davis held a celebratory event on the night of the authorization vote results, during which they spoke about their demands on behalf of the student workers they represent.

“The negotiations leading up to [the strike authorization] have been repeatedly stalled or undermined by the University of California,” said Diana Sernas, who has been part of the negotiation process with UC Davis administration on behalf of UAW 2865. “We find the UAW has filed over 20 [reports of ] unfair labor practices at the bargaining table.” According to the Fair UC Now website, the unions’ demands have historically sought legal protection from bullying practices in the workplace. Negotiations about legal protection from bullying reached a tentative agreement in August according to Neal Sweeney, the president of UAW 5810, which represents UC postdoctoral students and academic researchers. “[Bullying] is a big problem, particularly in research fields and in academia due to the power dynamics,” Sweeney said. “Usually the professor holds a lot of power over people’s lives and careers. The university had broken the law by refusing to bargain on this topic, which we felt [constituted] unfair labor practices.” While negotiations for this demand were successful, other core demands have not been met. These include pay increases, childcare benefits, international scholar rights and transit incentives. “One example of a sustainable transit incentive that the UC could provide would be a subsidy for purchasing a bike, because Davis is a very bike-friendly town, and it is very cumbersome to drive,” Sernas said. The strike authorization comes out of a collaboration between the three previously mentioned unions, which is historically notable according to Ximena Anleu-Gil, who is on the bargaining team for SRU-UAW. STRIKEAUTHORIZATION on 8

TWO VICTIMS HIT IN DRIVE-BY BB GUN SETTLEMENT MADE WITH CITY OF DAVIS WILL PROVIDE SHOOTINGS The two consecutive incidents occurred on Oct. 30 and come as the second BB gun-related crime in Davis this quarter BY RACHEL GAUER campus@theaggie.org On the evening of Oct. 30, two victims reported being hit with BB gun bullets during two separate drive-by incidents, according to an email crime alert from the UC Davis Police Department sent to community members during the early morning of Oct. 31. The crime alert, written by Sergeant Vincent Kwong, reported that two incidents occurred within a short time period just after 8:20 p.m. and that both victims described the suspected vehicle as a dark-colored SUV. One of the victims, a first-year bioscience major who requested to be anonymous, described their experience and their actions immediately following the initial shot. “I was in the bike lane and a car drove beside me and I suddenly felt a sting in my back,” the student said. “I didn’t really know what happened but I looked at the car that was passing me and I saw an airsoft gun hanging out of the window. I started yelling at them and I tried to chase them with my bike down the road but they sped off before I could catch their license plate and everything.” Due to their quick response to the shot, the victim stated that they were able to offer information to the police regarding the specific type of gun and the model of the vehicle. The student

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Davis Youth Softball Association and civil rights nonprofits settle with the city of Davis over Fair Play Act violations BY MADELEINE YOUNG city@theaggie.org NATALIE CHENG / AGGIE offered advice for others involved in a future incident of the same nature. “For a lot of people, the initial shock of it can throw you off, and then you can miss really pertinent information,” the student said. “I think the best way to respond is to try to get as much information [about] the perpetrator as possible, like the color of the car, who the person is, the type of gun it was and especially the license plate.” These incidents were the second on-campus BB gun crime that has been reported this quarter. On Sept. 27, victims were hit by an unknown suspect on the corner of La Rue Rd. and Orchard Rd., according to a crime alert that was sent out the following day. According to the report, no victims involved requested medical attention. Earlier this year, on April 1, another drive-by incident of a similar nature occurred when a group of students gathered atop the parking garage on Hutchinson Drive for a club social event. According to Cecelia Wong, a third-year biomedical engineering major who attended the event, a Jeep turned a corner at rapid speed and began shooting at the group of students with what looked like a BB gun, hitting multiple of them. Wong was one of those who was hit, and she described the incident. “When I saw the car zooming around the corner, I actually thought they were going to [run into] us because they were going so fast,” Wong said. “We were all standing in a big group together and we couldn’t see anyone’s faces but we saw guns pointing out the window.” Wong noted that the group later analyzed the bullets and determined the gun was likely not a BB gun but rather a water pellet gun due to the watery, gel substance of the pellets. Despite the relatively harmless nature

of the bullets, the event left the students shaken up. “We didn’t really react because it was so fast, but everyone felt the shots of getting hit,” Wong said. “We were all in shock and didn’t really move. We all just stood there and then soon the car drove down the parking garage and sped off.” Due to the rapid speed of driveby incidents, law enforcement officials explained that it is difficult for victims to quickly identify those involved in the shootings, and therefore, the police are not able to make prosecutions related to the incidents. Doug Voska, the Patrol Lieutenant for the UC Davis Police Department, noted that one common theme of the events tends to be the areas surrounding Russell Boulevard, which he described as the dividing line between UC Davis and the city of Davis. However, according to Voska, the lack of information regarding the suspects’ identities and their motives makes the search for them difficult. “I don’t know why [incidents like these] are happening,” Voska said. “I don’t know if it’s maybe something done by high school kids [as a prank], but we haven’t received a whole lot of information that we could consider actionable.” Though there haven’t been any prosecutions so far, Voska highlighted the importance of being aware of one’s surroundings for the sake of personal safety and in order to retain information that could lead to a successful prosecution. “It is unfortunate, but it seems to be that now we have to be aware of cars that are passing by,” Voska said. “But if people are on notice that this is happening, and they’re aware of their surroundings, then if something does happen, they can get a better description.”

On Oct. 27, the Davis Youth Softball Association (DYSA), backed by nonprofit groups Legal Aid at Work, Fair Play for Girls in Sports and the California Women Law Center, came to a settlement with the city of Davis. The settlement addressed ongoing allegations against the city for noncompliance with the Fair Play in Community Sports Act, which was passed nearly 20 years ago, and promised renovations and improvements to softball facilities across the city of Davis that have yet to be implemented. The city will begin improving facilities and programs to promote fair play, equality and opportunities for girls in sports. The city will additionally manage funding, equipment, practice, coach compensation, publicity, qualified umpires, judges and game schedules, according to the settlement. DYSA President Jennifer Martinez has voiced her concerns regarding the state of DYSA softball fields with the support of parents, players and nonprofits over the past year. “We noted that there were some inequities between different sports organizations that are down and we wanted to have equity for girls,” Martinez said. “It’s not girls against

JOANNE SUN / AGGIE

boys, it’s equity for the youth in the community.” Despite the Fair Play Act being in place for almost two decades, the association, players and parents voiced concerns over the differences between the F Street softball field and the Davis Little League baseball fields. “There’s no fences, no bathrooms, there’s no concessions standards, there’s no lights, there’s no place to sit for the girls, but right across the street, the boys have all of those things,” Martinez said. “And then as they grow up, they notice these things and they start asking questions.” Legal Aid at Work was one of the nonprofits that contributed to the settlement. Elizabeth Kristen, the legal aid director and senior staff attorney of the Gender Equity and LGBT Rights Program for Legal Aid at Work, wrote a letter in Oct. 2020 addressing the violations of the Fair Play in Community Sports Act with support from other organizations. “A lot of girls don’t have access to sports in their schools, maybe not until they get to high school, and club sports are really expensive and sometimes out of reach,” Kristen said. “And so having access to fair opportunities in community sports is really important.” FAIRPLAY on 8