The World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees are holding a meeting this Saturday, May 25, at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific, to oppose the attempts to ban the strike by University of California academic workers. They have launched a courageous strike this week against the crackdown on campus protests over the genocide in Gaza.

Register for the event by clicking here.

Will Lehman, a socialist Mack Trucks worker who ran for United Auto Workers president on a platform of rank-and-file control, issued the following statement in support of the meeting:

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The strike by University of California academic workers against the crackdown on Gaza protests is in danger. On Tuesday, the university filed for a court injunction to ban the strike.

This is an attack on the whole working class. If they get away with this, no rights are safe.

The World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees are holding an emergency meeting this Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific. All workers in every industry should attend. The issue will not be decided in the pro-corporate courts. It will be decided in the factories, the docks, the schools and hospitals, and other workplaces.

Workers must take action to defend the strike. It must be expanded to not just the entire University of California system but to the entire UAW membership and to other industries. Workers must form rank-and-file committees to enforce the will of the membership against the sellouts by the union bureaucrats.

The ruling class wants to ban all forms of political opposition. If you protest the crimes of the government you will be arrested. If you strike against arrests and the suppression of free speech, your strike will be declared illegal. One university administrator put it bluntly. He said: “Particularly in today’s climate,” if this strike is allowed, “the University—and every other public agency in California—would face constant strikes advancing political and/or social viewpoints.”

But every struggle in the history of the workers’ movement—from the fight against child labor, for the eight-hour day, and for the right to strike itself—has been a “political” struggle.

The same methods have already been turned against workers opposing corporate exploitation. In 2022, Biden and Congress banned a strike by railroad workers on so-called national security grounds.

The UAW is sabotaging the UC strike because they support Genocide Joe Biden. They are acting as an extension of the police and the courts.

They have only called out a single campus, UC Santa Cruz. They responded to the injunction by begging the university to negotiate. They say they may call out another campus by Friday. But the strike could already be illegal by then. But even if they do get an agreement to shut down the strike, it will be an injunction in all but name.

There is enormous rank-and-file anger over this sabotage. But the issue has to be taken out of the hands of the bureaucrats. The response has to begin now.