Members of the academic workers' union at the University of California Los Angeles were arrested when the Los Angeles Police Department raided the Palestine Solidarity Encampment just hours after the union leadership voted to hold a strike authorization vote.
"[The university] had the option to deescalate and negotiate with the protestors, but it chose instead to tear down the Palestine Solidarity Encampment using flash bang grenades and rubber bullets," UAW local 4811 posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday morning. "Arrests have been made including of UAW 4811 members."
UAW 4811 represents nearly 50,000 academic researchers and post-docs across 10 public universities and one laboratory in California. In the fall of 2022, it was part of the largest strike in the history of American higher education, when academic workers walked off the job for more than a month.
The union's executive board held an emergency meeting on Wednesday morning, during which they voted to hold a strike authorization vote as early as Monday — which would give the union the authority to call an official strike. While it remains unclear how a strike would impact university operations, the 2022 work stoppage delayed final exams and brought the majority of research to a halt.
In an email to union members obtained by HNGN, the UCLA academic researchers and post-doctoral students said that the university's "failure" to protect pro-Palestinian students and employees from the counter-protestors, who stormed their encampment early Wednesday morning, was an abdication of responsibility.
"Management has employed police violence or allowed violence to be used against students, faculty and academic workers exercising their right to free speech, the executive board of UAW 4811 wrote. "The use and sanction of violent force to curtail peaceful protest is an attack on free speech and the right to demand change, and the university must sit down with students, unions and campus organizations to negotiate, rather than escalate."
The union's co-president, Rafael Jaime, was among the students who allegedly experienced violent harassment at the hands of counter-protestors.
"Dozens of my coworkers and I were physically attacked and maced by outside agitators while the university stood idly by," Jaime posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. "This escalation will not stand-our union will take swift and decisive action."
Jaime did not immediately respond to HNGN's request for comment.
