Julianne rach
for head steward

My name is JuliAnne Rach (she/her). I am a third year PhD student and the department steward for the Classics department at UCLA. I am running for Head Steward on the Rank and File for a Democratic Union slate.

I joined UAW 4811 (formerly UAW 2865) in Fall 2022, my first quarter at UCLA. I saw the strength and power graduate student workers can wield when we come together for shared goals during the historic Fall 2022 strike. I also saw how demobilizing it can be when members feel like our voices aren’t heard. As a RnFDU candidate, I am running to ensure that union leadership creates spaces for and takes into account the wide array of voices included in our membership body.

In Fall 2024, I was elected and served as a delegate in UAW 4811’s Bargaining Convention. I, along with my RnFDU comrades, brought proposals to the convention covering a wide range of issues which directly impact the lives of graduate student workers at UCLA, including: COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment for wages), centralized funding to help graduate workers easily transfer labs, better disability protections and accessibility requirements, cops off campus, international student support and fee remissions, divestment, better childcare subsidies, andmore. Not all of these passed in the convention, where current leadership held the majority of delegate seats. However, I am committed to fighting for these issues and continuing to push for what graduate student workers deserve.

Funding is getting slashed left and right and the UC will use this issue as an excuse to not increase our wages, assign us lower percentage teaching appointments, or even remove positions. However, the UC is sitting on a large pot of money that is currently invested in war profiteering. Divestment is a labor issue, but now especially it is necessary for us to use our voices and collective power to call for the university to reallocate their investments into supporting their academic institution and employees. UC has the money to pay every graduate student worker a living wage; we must demand that it does.

The current Trump administration is actively attacking international students, slashing worker protections, and even eliminating the ability for unions to strike. Repression of free speech is running rampant throughout our country, especially in institutions of higher learning. We must fight against this repression and demand worker protections and end policing on campus. Our collective power matters now more than ever. We cannot fully mobilize our coworkers if we ignore the needs and protections of our most vulnerable workers by sacrificing them at the bargaining table, which we saw happen in 2022 with key issues such as international student fee remission, COLA, and disability rights. We must mean it when we say that an injury to one is an injury to all!