UAW Local 4811’s Illegal Strike for Anti-Israel Encampments at the University of California

Case numbers: 30-2024-01403666 (Orange County Sup. Ct.); SF-CE-1462-H & SF-CO-246-H (California PERB)

The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute represents Daniel Solomon, who opposes UAW Local 4811’s unlawful strike on behalf of so-called “Palestinian Solidarity Encampments” at the University of California. The union’s political demands, if successful, would make Jewish graduate student-workers like Solomon less safe and less free to move and speak on campuses where anti-Israel encampments have seized public spaces.

Background

The union, which has a duty to fairly represent all graduate student workers including Solomon, called a strike to advance demands for the “Palestinian Solidarity Movement,” specifically protesting the administration that enforced rules against camping and trespass by clearing anti-Israel encampments at some campuses of the University of California. UAW Local 4811 has active contracts covering all of its workers. The union’s strike clearly breaches its collective bargaining agreements and inflicts chaos on tens of thousands of students, merely so that the union can throw its support behind purely political demands with no connection to genuine working conditions.

UAW Local 4811 claims their strike is for workplace safety, but as Solomon’s briefs explains, the public thoroughfares seized by anti-Israel protestors were never graduate student-worker’s “workplaces,” and the encampments themselves posed a greater risk to workers than the University’s belated efforts to enforce its rules. This is especially true for Jewish workers like Solomon, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California Berkeley, who was blockaded by Palestinian activists and attended an event where violent activists targeted an Israeli speaker, forcing police to evacuate attendees for their own safety.

The union also argues that the University curtailed academic freedom or favored pro-Israel speech by clearing encampments at UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine, but the reverse is true. The University has permitted no other group to brazenly violate time, place, and manner rules, occupy public spaces, pitch tents, and erect barricades. In fact, the only place that the free of exchange of ideas was stifled was within so-called “Palestinian Solidarity Encampments,” which monopolize access to public spaces and force out speakers who disagree.

Solomon himself experienced hostility and exclusion from the Union-backed “Palestinian Solidarity Encampments.” In one incident, he was escorted out of an encampment at Berkeley by masked activists (one shown above) solely for being Jewish and supporting Israel’s right to exist. The day after Solomon was escorted out of camp, a Jewish law student was struck by an activist from the same camp.

While the union claims the encampments it strikes to support of are “peaceful” and “inclusive,” the reaction to a video posted by the union in support of strike vividly illustrates the opposite. In the video, a union member says that “as an Israeli” he “felt welcomed and safe” in the UCLA encampment. Palestinian activists swarmed the video, calling the Israeli union member a “genocidaire,” “fascist,” “war criminal,” and “baby killer.” One union member wrote “Wait are you guys serious? How many Palestinians did this guy just murder? You’re pandering to Zionists to get your [stirke authorization vote] passed? And it’s a shame that he ever felt safe for one moment at the encampment. Unreal.” One activist posted a 12-point thread on Twitter claiming that the UCLA encampment organizers issued wristbands to trusted camp members and that “organizers practiced further exclusivity” and that in the last days of the UCLA encampment “they created a vouching system where an organizer/trusted community member had to hand pick you,” and as a result “Zionist entry became all [b]ut impossible.” A literature professor simply tweeted “Why tf did you let a IOF soldier into your encampment?”

While the Union presents the “Palestine Solidarity Encampments” as inclusive spaces, the activists who control these encampments exclude individuals based not only on their ideology—which is bad enough in a public space intended to foster free speech—but also their identity.

The union also demanded that the University of California system to ”divest from profiting off of the suffering in Gaza.” UAW 4811 attempted to back away from this nakedly political demand in PERB proceedings, essentially gaslighting the agency that the demand was a figment of the University’s imagination. But in fact divestment was a major part of the Union’s push for strike authorization, as a statewide union chair explained while leading divestment chants at the Berkeley encampment.

Solomon’s Briefs

On May 23, 2024, the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute requested that the California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) consider Solomon’s informational brief (akin to an amicus brief). The brief explained that the Union’s political strike violates contractual obligations and endangers the safety and rights of Jewish workers like Daniel Solomon. HLLI wants to ensure representation and the protection of all workers’ rights at The University of California Berkeley. PERB rejected Solomon’s brief, explaining that its interpretation of regulations only allows such brief later, at the formal hearing stage. Should the PERB charges reach this stage, HLLI intends to renew its request to consider Solomon’s views.

The next day, PERB denied the University’s application to enjoin the strike without prejudice to renew. The University tried again the next week and was again denied, so filed a suit against the union in the Superior Court of Orange County to enforce the “no strike” provision of the union contracts. PERB attempted to intervene in this case, while acknowledging that the Superior Court has concurrent jurisdiction to hear breach of contract claims. The Superior Court granted a Temporary Restraining Order and denied the PERB application without prejudice on June 7, and set a schedule for the University’s preliminary injunction motion to be heard on June 27.

On June 13, Solomon filed an amicus brief with the Orange County court. While Solomon is no friend of the University, which has largely turned a blind eye to antisemitism on its campuses, he supports their motion for a preliminary injunction against the strike. If the union succeeds in launching an illegal strike in support of the so-called solidarity encampments, it will endanger Jewish workers and students like Solomon. Additionally, Solomon observed that while the union is officially complying with the restraining orders, some union officers appear to be conspiring to withhold grades in hopes of securing “amnesty” for activists who were arrested for trespass, vandalism, and other laws.

The court will hear whether to allow the amicus brief on June 14, and the University’s motion will be heard on June 27.

Case Documents