Round 3: UC takes striking academic workers to Orange County court in bid to halt walkout (2024)

The fate of an ongoing strike by UC academic workers at a critical time of the year with finals underway could be decided Friday in an Orange County courthouse.

University of California officials have twice failed before the state Public Employment Relations Board to halt the United Auto Workers Local 4811 union strike that kicked off nearly three weeks ago at UC Santa Cruz and has spread to six campuses, including UCLA and UC Irvine.

The university is now taking its case to the Orange County Superior Court, seeking an urgent order to stop the walkout for the third time. UC’s lawsuit claims the union strike over alleged violations to workers’ free speech rights during pro-Palestinian protests breaches “no strike” clauses in its contracts. The university argues in court documents that the strike is causing “irreparable harm” to operations, including cancellations to classes.

UC contends the strike is about politics, not terms of employment and issues related to labor. In court documents, UC cited an instance in which a union member pushed their department to vote for the strike, stating, “[T]he top demand that matters here is disinvestment. This is about Palestine first and our ability to work comfortably at UC second.”

The strike “will continue to cause irreversible harm to the university as it will disrupt the education of thousands of students,” Melissa Matella, UC’s associate vice president for systemwide labor relations, said in a statement. She added that the strike “endangers life-saving research in hundreds of laboratories across the university and will also cause the university substantial monetary damages.”

UC’s decision to go to state court was described as a “brazen” move by a UC Irvine professor of employment and labor law who suggested the university may have sued in Orange County because judges there have been friendlier to employers in labor disputes.

“It’s not that they clearly do not have the authority to go to Superior Court,” said Veena Dubal, the professor. “That is a legal issue for the court to decide. But it is pretty brazen because they are going simply because they did not like the outcome at PERB, which is the agency charged with actually dealing with these issues.”

The union, which represents 48,000 workers across 10 campuses and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, maintains its strike is legal and unrelated to its contracts because the walkout is over broad worker rights it alleges were violated during university actions against pro-Palestinian protesters, including arrests and academic discipline that has prevented some workers from access to university-owned housing.

The union represents graduate teaching assistants, researchers and other academic workers who lead discussion groups, grade papers, conduct research and administer exams, among other responsibilities. It authorized the strikes last month, alleging its members’ free speech rights were harmed during crackdowns on pro-Palestinian protests at UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Irvine, as well as charges. It also cited harm to workers who participated in a UCLA encampment that a mob attacked for several hours on April 30 without police intervention.

The union filed unfair labor practice charges with PERB over those accusations. UC has filed its own charges with the board, contending the strike is illegal.

The labor board denied two UC injunction requests, ruling the university did not meet the legal threshold for it to stop the walkout while mediation over both sides’ charges continued over the long term.

UC officials, as well as the union, have declined to state exactly how many classes, discussion groups or other work led by union members have been affected by the strike across campuses.

The Friday hearing was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the Complex Center in Santa Ana under Orange County Superior Court Judge Randall J. Sherman.

It was previously scheduled for the morning under Judge William D. Claster, but was reassigned to Sherman after the union in a Thursday night filing alleged that Claster is “prejudiced against defendant or its attorneys or the interests of defendant or its attorneys.” The filing said the union “cannot have a fair and impartial trial or hearing” under Claster.

A decision by a judge will not resolve the question of whether the strike is an illegal breach of contract. The labor board is already looking at that question in a long-term process and suggested in a filing Thursday that it was inappropriate for the university to ask the state court to look at the same matter.

The labor board has requested to be a party to the Orange County case, arguing that it has “exclusive initial jurisdiction over aspects of this dispute.”

“A ruling or judgment issued by the court without PERB’s participation may impair or impede PERB’s ability to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the legality of the subject labor strike under [the Higher Education Employee Relations Act] and, if it finds an unfair practice, determine the appropriate remedy,” the labor board’s lawyer said in its filing.

In a statement Monday, after the labor board’s most recent decision against the university system, UAW Local 4811 President Rafael Jaime called on “UC to face reality,” charging it with “legal saber-rattling.”

UC officials should “stop wasting time and public resources on legal maneuvers,” said Jaime, a UCLA doctoral student in literature. He said that going to state court meant UC has “decided to ignore the authority” of the labor board and is “continuing to insist that the rules do not apply to it.”