Scandal Hits Bargaining Team Listserve!

After what we have been saying for a long time now about AWDU, this has finally hit the listserve that the Bargaining Team uses:

Shocking!

1. This just goes to show what ends an AWDU member will go for their own agenda.
2. As we all know kids LOVE dinosaurs, so the bigger question is WHY DOES AWDU HATE KIDS?
3. Lastly, where is this mass murderer? The circumstances surrounding his stepping down from the BT are mysterious (in that we haven't written about it yet therefore any other claims must not exist). Is AWDU hiding a known genocidal maniac?

Some people have raised doubts about this message, even going so far as to saying that we ourselves sent it just so we could post it here to get you riled up. However we want you to remember one thing, if it is posted on the listserve it MUST be true.

UPDATE:
Within minutes of this being posted on PO the above email has somehow been removed from the google groups, as if it was never there to begin with....
CONSPIRACY!!

We are winning!!!

Extra! Extra! We are Winning!

Crack open the champagne!

The following was posted by PF's twitter account:

What is so great about this you may ask? Well the "parody" site they are referring to is us. So let's be clear. First, we are not a "parody" site. We are a spontaneous grassroots movement. Second, hysterical huh? Reminds us of an old saying usually attributed to Ghandi:

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Well as you can see PF has not previously tweeted about us, nor comment on our blog. so that's stage 1 ignoring. Now they tweet that we are "hilarious". That's stage 2 laughing. We know where this leads....

We would like to declare victory now. Thank you.

AWDU Silences Opposition

AWDU Silences Opposition

Charges have been leveled that the ruling caucus, Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU), are not so democratic after all. We agree. Our experience with AWDU is that they are tyrannical and violently opposed to any dissent.

Charges include:

• Using consensus as a form of decision making whenever possible and when a decision is obviously too contentious to come to consensus then using a vote by majority rule. Then using the decision of that the majority rule vote to guide the actions of the union. What about what everybody else wanted to do? Huh?
• Voting for what they think, not what we think. When an AWDU member votes they act like they are some kind of elected representative and speak for their constituents. But doesn't this mean that they are discounting what people at other campuses think when they vote? For example if Duane Wright, Unit Chair of Davis, votes he only considers what he thinks and what people at Davis think. But why shouldn't he be responsive to the members at Santa Barbara. He should at least split his vote in an act of solidarity with his own opposition.
• AWDU elected leaders have actually said things. Publicly. But when they speak they do so out of their own opinion. This is partisan and is divisive.Obviously everything we say has our own biases in it. So why should AWDU be allowed to speak at all. For example: When UAW 2865 President gets on the phone to talk to other unions or the international, he speaks his own mind - not what we are thinking. Sounds like an abuse of power to us!

Couldn't AWDU do what we do, and keep the debate within our own ranks instead of sharing their ideas, opinions, and strategies publicly. Obviously no one from the University Management will ever read our blog. I mean its the internet, how easy can it be to find it?

Our Strategy

Our Strategy

Now that we have told you what we stand for (see blog post "We cannot be silent!") we feel that the next logical thing is to explain our strategy.

We feel that the biggest problem for UAW members is our low yearly income, and furthermore that the biggest obstacle to getting a fatter paycheck is the current UAW leadership. This might seem counter-intuitive, but I assure you that actually UC Management wants to give us the best paycheck they possibly can afford. We think a simple 5% pay raise isn't disagreeable. So why won't they just give it to us.

The answer is simple. Radicals have taken over the union and want to "fight" for things. That puts the bureaucrats that run the university in a stand-offish mood at best. They don't want to encourage the occupy style rhetoric and tactics that the current leadership uses, so they cannot reward this behavior by giving us all raises. If only our bargaining room were filled with respectable young men and women who saw that management and the union have overlapping interests (the welfare and administration of our university).

We stand for conciliation with President Napolitano, Chancellor Katehi, Richard Blum, Monica Lozano and others. After all, aren't they just workers too? Aren't they just trying to do their job?

This is why we will not be organizing or mobilizing against management during these contract negotiations. Instead we are simply trying to position ourselves to be in a better spot during the upcoming triennial elections next Spring, when we can take down our true enemies - other workers - because that's what solidarity really means.

We Cannot Remain Silent!

We cannot remain silent!

Paycheck First (a not-so-popular blog regarding the UAW 2865 contract campaign) claims to stand up for what matters most- our wallets! - but they have shown time and again that that is not true.

Don't get us wrong, we truly believe that PF only cares about our wallets, but our grievance is that they have capitulated to the rhetoric of the social justice, anarcho-communist leftwing extremist Marxists that rule our union.

This blog is different. We don't hide behind rhetoric- secretly working for the side of good while using the words of the anarchists and socialists-, we are UNABASHEDLY HONEST about our values. Paycheck Only stands for precisely that. We don't care about quality and accessibility of education. Let the legislature figure that out. We won't waste time talking about bathrooms in the bargaining room. We are here for one reason and one reason only: TO FATTEN YOUR WALLET.

Why should our dues money go to fighting for anti-discrimination? 
That's why we have LGBT Centers, Women's Centers, Black Student Unions, etc on campus.

Why should our dues money go to fighting for bathrooms?
That's what our Grad Student Assemblies are for.

Why should our dues money go to fighting for childcare and dependent care?
We've got the ACA now so the healthcare issue is fixed, and most members don't have children.

Why are we spending all this time on so called "rights" and "accessibility" for minorities?
I thought the current leadership wanted a democratic union, doesn't democracy mean majority rule?!

Why has bargaining taken this long?
Seriously, how long does it take to just ask for a modest 5% raise and then capitulate to a 3% raise when management says that they can't afford that? Bargaining could have been over in like 1 hour if we were in charge.

Why Paycheck ONLY not Paycheck FIRST?
Because in order to get non-economic wins (childcare, healthcare, housing subsidies, parking subsidies, transportation subsidies, appointment notification, appointment security, abolition of the 18 quarter limit, smaller class size etc...) we will have to give up some amount of an economic win. That's how all those things are always leveraged. So for every little change we want we're going to have to give up something. Everything has a cost!!!

Which is why the only way to truly stand up for our wallets is to say PAYCHECKS ONLY!!