#COLA Now: A Conversation with UCSC Wildcat Strikers

What this episode covers

Our July 2020 podcast features scholar-teacher-organizers from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Brenda Arjona, Bristol Cave-Lacoste, and Priscilla Martinez are graduate workers who, with their colleagues at UCSC, have been on a wildcat strike for a cost of living adjustment (COLA) since December 2019. They are fighting to reduce the overwhelming rent burden, as well as food insecurity and barriers to healthcare, that they and other precarious workers in Santa Cruz have had to endure. They tell us about their movement, and what they've been through. Sneak peak: the story involves a struggle for union democracy, mass firing and loss of healthcare during a pandemic, inspiring coalitions with local workers and students, standoffs with police in riot gear, a *fire* social media campaign that helped spread the strike across the whole state system, and the launch of Strike University across the UC.

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