The Project Collective has put together a little primer on the upcoming strike by service (represented by the AFSCME union) and clerical (the CUE union) workers on April 14th. We hope this paper helps to clarify the issues faced by the workers and the ways in which these issues are connected to student concerns.

As members of the UCSC community, we are concerned and upset when some among us are denied the means to achieve reasonable living standards, and continually treated with disrespect by their high-profile employer. The mistreatment of CUE and AFSCME workers is an offense to the values we hold as a community: gender and racial justice, and wages that enable everyone to live with dignity. Supporting service and clerical workers in their fight for fair contracts is a crucial part of realizing these values.

Moreover, we recognize that the same skewed budget priorities resulting in poverty wages for campus clerical and service workers are also responsible for our diminished funding opportunities. Graduate students, campus workers, undergraduates, and faculty all have a common concern: UC’s undemocratic budgetary process and the gross mal-distribution that results. Behind the crass injunction to ‘fuck the regents’ is stealth analytic accuracy.

In this issue: STRIKE 101: basic facts you should know | CUE: The Coalition of University Employees (i.e. The Clerical Union) | AFSCME: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (i.e. The Service Worker Union) | University of California: non-profit or corporate money maker? | Statewide Day Of Action April 20th | Map of UCSC Strike Zone for April 14th

See also: Making Sense of the UCSC Crisis | Student Speakout @ The Strike | FuckTheRegents.com