Thursday, February 3, 2011

For the Future of Our Union


A Message from the Social and Economic Justice Caucus, UAW Local 2865

We, the undersigned, are members of UAW Local 2865 and of the Social and Economic Justice Caucus within our local. We are all currently scheduled to run in contested elections for open union offices. Opposing us are candidates who campaigned against the recent contract ratification. We have many differences with them, but we share a common interest in strengthening our local union.  As committed members, we are thrilled to see so much interest in building this grassroots union, and encourage all members to get more involved, to take a leadership role, and to fight against the attacks on higher education and working people. 

This year, too much energy has already been spent on infighting. Every hour spent campaigning between well-intentioned union activists is an hour not spent getting more people involved, turning out for the March 2nd day of action, filing grievances to enforce our contract or talking with members one-on-one to keep our union membership strong.

Therefore, in the interest of inclusiveness, diversity, and putting aside our differences to focus on the larger goal of defending public education and fighting for social justice, we hereby announce that we will all be withdrawing from the upcoming election, thereby allowing our opposition to assume office immediately.

We understand that there are many points of view on the best way to fight back against the budget cuts and fee increases. We believe very strongly that the vision shared by our slate of candidates is both the most progressive and the most powerful of all those put forward by the existing candidates. However, we also believe that our union is more powerful as a united force, joined in the goals that we all share: fighting for the rights and benefits of our members, the broader campus community and for advancing social justice for working people everywhere.

Nobody needs to have a formal leadership position to participate in the important work we have ahead of us. We all pledge to do just as much and to fight just as hard as we would have had we been elected to the positions for which we accepted nomination. We hope that our decision encourages all elected leaders, as well as all members, to work together on the many things we agree on, so that we will become an even stronger force in pushing back against attacks on higher education and continuing to advance the cause of social justice at UC and beyond.

Sincerely,


Isabelle Placentia, UCR
Joshua Hollowell, UCR
Camille C. Peters, UCB
Marquell Craddock, UCB
Coral Wheeler, UCI
Marie van Staveren, UCI
Adam Kaiserman , UCI
Rees Garmann, UCLA
Graham Raulerson, UCLA
Albert Lowe, UCLA
Jacob Burstein-Stern, UCLA
Pedro Mojica, UCLA
Marcus Desmond Harmon, UCLA