VOLUME 51, ISSUE 24
MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2018
WWW.UCSDGUARDIAN.ORG
UC SYSTEM
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AFSCME Calls for John Lewis to Boycott Commencement AFSCME Local 3299 also voted to strike after their demands for higher wages and reduced income inequality were not met. BY Lauren Holt
news editor
Geekdom club at UC San Diego, a sex-positive group that holds weekly discussions, told the UCSD Guardian that this would severely impact consensual sex workers who use online sites for their business. Hyde says that the bill will push consensual sex work off the internet, making it much more dangerous. “They’re being pushed back into the arms of pimps, and they’re having to work the streets again,” Hyde stated. “You could vet clients over the internet [and] you could talk to other sex workers and ask if a client was trustworthy without having to meet clients in person which is huge.”
Members of the union representing UC workers, the American Federation for State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3299, overwhelmingly voted to authorize a university-wide strike on April 18 as part of AFSCME’s ongoing dispute with the UC administration over wage negotiations and widening inequality. The union is also calling on U.S. Rep. and civil rights icon John Lewis, who will be delivering the commencement address at UC San Diego’s graduation ceremony in June, and other UC commencement speakers to boycott their engagements with the university as a display of support for AFSCME. Among the union’s demands are a six percent wage increase across the board each year, prioritizing pension stability, setting the retirement age at 60 years old, no increases to healthcare costs, and no collaboration by the administration with U.S. Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement. According to AFSCME Communications Director John de los Angeles, while it has been authorized, the strike will only actually take place if absolutely necessary. “We’ve been negotiating for over a year with the UC [system],” de los Angeles told the UCSD Guardian. “We’ve exhausted the bargaining and mediation process.” De los Angeles also explained that a report released by AFSCME found widening income, race, and gender inequality among UC workers. The report, which was published earlier this month, indicates that between 2005 and 2015, the top 10 percent of UC wage earners saw their shares of the total payroll cost grow from 22 percent to 31 percent while the share of the bottom 50 percent of wage earners decreased from 24 percent to 22 percent. “Whites and Asian/Pacific Islander workers are more often hired into higher-paying titles, while Blacks, Latinos, and Latinas are more often hired into lower-paying jobs,” AFSCME stated, concluding that racial and gender hierarchies have formed among employees. The UC administration has also not provided any adequate proposals on recruitment, retention, and training to resolve these inequalities, de los Angeles said. While student employees are not included in AFSCME, student workers are legally allowed to join the strike and picket lines in support of AFSCME’s actions, which de los Angeles noted
See FOSTA, page 3
See AFSCME, page 3
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Molly Rankin, lead singer of pop band Alvvays, strums and sings with conviction. Photo by Esra Elhendy // UCSD Guardian
CAMPUS
White Coats for Black Lives Stages “Die-In” Demonstration
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By lauren Holt News Editor
he UC San Diego School of Medicine chapter of White Coats for Black Lives, a national organization to address racial bias in the practice of medicine and the danger of racism to the health of people of color, staged a “die-in” protest outside Geisel Library on April 17 as part of a nationwide effort against police brutality. Approximately 30 medical students donned their lab coats and lay on the ground in front of the Silent Tree, pretending to be dead. Many of the students held signs with phrases like “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” “hands up don’t shoot,” and “Racism is a public health crisis. It must end now” that called attention to issues facing the black community, particularly police brutality. After lying on the ground for at least 15 minutes, several students stood up to speak. Four of the demonstrators read a biography of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man gunned down in his grandmother’s backyard by the deputies in the Sacramento Police Department, also reading the police and autopsy reports detailing the events leading up to the shooting. “Of the 987 individuals shot and killed by the police in 2017, 23 percent were black despite only 13 percent of the U.S. population being black. In 2017, black people were nearly three times more likely
than white people to be shot and killed by the police,” one of the demonstrators stated, reading statistics highlighting the disproportionate jailing and shooting of black Americans compared to other racial groups. Medical student Imani Law also gave a short speech, stating “the biggest takeaway from today is that it’s not just enough to be non-racist, but anti-racist as well.” The students wrapped up the demonstration by gathering on the steps outside Geisel, holding up their signs. White Coats for Black Lives began in 2014 when medical students across the country felt inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement to stage independent die-ins at their medical schools. These individual groups then came together to stage a national die-in on Dec. 10, 2014 and formed White Coats for Black Lives on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2015. Led by the UC Davis chapter, the WC4BL demonstration was a coordinated effort by the different chapters to address Clark’s shooting. “Join us as we come together to: stand in solidarity with victims of police violence, demand accountability from those in power, urge healthcare institutions to provide greater trauma-informed care to afflicted communities,” the White Coats for Black Lives Facebook page stated.
UCSD
New Law Fighting Sex Trafficking May Affect Some UCSD Students Critics are concerned the bill will limit free speech and drive sex workers to unsafe practices. BY Tyler Faurot
editorial Assistant On April 11, President Donald Trump signed the “Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act / Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act” bill into law. FOSTA was written with just that intention, to combat the forcible sale of people for sex over the internet. It was passed in the Senate with only two “no” votes and 97 “yes” votes. As some critics of the bill have illustrated, however, the bill could do more harm than good. FOSTA makes online platformers liable for the content posted on their sites by third parties. The bill authorizes civil and criminal lawsuits to be brought against those platforms. In
essence, the law criminalizes any online content that could potentially enable sex trafficking, while making the websites on which they are published responsible. This has already impacted the popular website Craigslist, which completely removed its personal ads section in response to the bill’s passing. Craigslist’s statement on the removal says that the bill subjects “websites to criminal and civil liability when third parties (users) misuse online personals unlawfully. Any tool or service can be misused. We can’t take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services, so we are regretfully taking Craigslist personals offline.” Jake Hyde, co-president of the Sex