Why the UAW 4811 Strike Failed

As part of the last gasp of the student movement, the graduate student workers of UAW 4811 at the University of California (UC) struck in solidarity with the besieged encampments for two weeks in late May-early June. UC administrators secured a court injunction against the union for violating a no-strike clause, and the strike was quickly defeated. UC met none of the strike demands, they dismantled the encampments and the genocide continues.

Many on the left hailed the strike authorization as a turning point in the movement with labor entering the fray. The left, including ourselves, has long called for labor action against the genocide. So, why was the strike a resounding defeat that did nothing to advance the cause?

The left is correct to note the political nature of the strike, but they ignore what those politics were. The impulse of grad students to defend their union and side with Palestine is good, but insufficient to wage the struggle necessary. The union leadership and the opposition caucuses pushing the strike share the liberal, pro-capitalist political perspective that chains both the labor and pro-Palestine movements.

After students and union members in encampments were assaulted at the behest of the UC administration, the union leadership delayed the strike vote until anger cooled. They delayed the strike until East Coast campuses closed and encampments were folding everywhere. They emulated the piecemeal “stand-up” tactics of the auto strike. Pickets at UCSC clashed with cops, but this was an exception. The union didn’t try to shut down the system. The leadership explicitly disavowed “illegal” actions like “blockading” campuses, i.e., building real picket lines that make a strike. These were not mere missteps, but political calculations to avoid escalating class confrontation while appealing to widespread sentiment against the genocide and repression.

To advance the common cause of workers and Palestinians requires a leadership willing and able to wage a struggle that will cause a serious crisis for the ruling class. The urgent work of defending Palestine and the union requires fighting to politically consolidate workers, students and the pro-Palestine movement around working-class political opposition to the imperialists based on material interests. Instead, both the union leadership and the opposition caucuses are tails on the bosses’ Democratic Party—either directly or through the Dems’ loyal servant, Shawn Fain. Militant or not, they sought only to mobilize workers for the narrow objective of tweaking university policy based on sympathy, outrage, and moral righteousness. This motivation was insufficient to build a solid strike and resulted in widespread scabbing.

The left and opposition caucuses have criticized the tepid tactics of the leadership, but these tactics flowed from a political perspective. SL supporters intervened during the strike to strengthen and broaden the movement by combating the main political obstacles embodied in the misleadership. The duty of communists was to stand with workers in action, while fighting for a break with the losing liberal strategy. The task now is to draw the correct lessons from this strike, to build support among workers and students for an anti-imperialist movement, and fight for leadership of the unions and pro-Palestine struggle on this basis.