What We’ve Done

Built Union Power and Participation

Organized over 550 undergraduate student assistants at UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley.
Built hundreds of department organizing committees to expand participation and leadership.
Helped to form Student Researchers United and win a union for all graduate researchers, trainees, and fellows through a massive, bottom-up organizing campaign and a supermajority strike threat.
Organized hundreds of tenants to fight rental increases in university-owned housing
Brought thousands of UC academic workers into the labor movement through union orientations and one-on-one conversations.

Successfully fought against UC’s attempts to underpay workers through arbitrary sub-50% appointments
Directly confronted bullying supervisors and abusive PIs to secure a more inclusive workplace for all UC academic workers
Filed grievances to secure Winter and Spring top-ups; reclaim hundreds of thousands of dollars in late/incorrect pay; stop bullying and harassment; secure a healthy and safe workplace free of pests and hazards; reclaim $100,000+ in UCLA campus fees and UC Berkeley IREF remissions; combat grade retaliation; and more.
Organized statewide and campus-level Contract Enforcement Committees and empowered hundreds of workers to understand and enforce our contracts through Know-Your-Rights and Know-Your-Wages trainings
Resolved systematic illegitimate deductions into DCP Safe Harbor, reclaiming $100,000+
Fought back against the unfair firing of international scholar who raised concerns about data manipulation

Led the charge to get the UAW International to support a ceasefire and organized to ensure high turnout in our membership vote for a Free Palestine.
Began the effort to pass the Berkeley Tenant Protections and Right to Organize ordinance alongside other local unions and progressive organizations.
Knocked doors and planned canvasses to elect labor champions, like CA Assembly member Liz Ortega and democratic socialist City Councillor Hugo Soto-Martinez

Participated in dozens of legislative visits with elected officials to advocate for our progressive, working-class agenda
Organized statewide and campus-level Political Organizing Committees where we have co-authored The Sympathy Strike Bill (AB 2404) with the Teamsters Union and brought our union power to Sacramento to demand oversight of UC’s planned enrollment and job cuts.

Helped lead a majority of our coworkers out on strike, planned logistics, drove trucks, loaded equipment, and ran picket lines to shut down the largest employer in California for 6 weeks in the largest strike of 2022.

Worked with Teamster delivery drivers to refuse to make essential deliveries and construction workers to walk off the job at multi-million dollar construction projects throughout our strike.
Planned and executed mass participation rallies and civil disobedience to protest bullying, harassment, and retaliation, rectify unjust terminations, and bring the fight directly to UC Chancellors, Regents, and President Drake
Bargained the first ever contract for Student Researchers (SRs), and successor contracts for Postdocs and Academic Researchers — winning industry standard-setting raises, historic protections against bullying, harassment, and abuse in the workplace, and more.

Led the way to a fighting, member-led UAW International through supporting the One Member, One Vote referendum, organizing to re-establish the historic and progressive UAW Region 6, and working with our union siblings in academic and industrial locals to increase democratic participation and form new unions across the region.