Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Results of University of California Boycott resolution

 The results of the University of California Graduate Student BDS resolution are in. With only 2168 voters out of 13,000 sufficiently engaged by this topic to even bother to vote, the results are as follows:
Yes: 1411 (65%)
No: 749 (35%)

Berkeley ballots cast: 721
Yes: 506
No: 214
Personal Pledge: 397

Davis ballots cast: 203
Yes: 167
No: 36
Personal Pledge: 127

Irvine ballots cast: 141
Yes: 55
No: 86
Personal Pledge: 46

Los Angeles ballots cast: 525
Yes: 305
No: 218
Personal Pledge: 238

Merced ballots cast: 1
This ballot was counted with the Riverside ballots to respect the anonymity of the Merced voter.

Riverside ballots cast: 127
Yes: 91
No: 36
Personal Pledge: 75

San Diego ballots cast: 149
Yes: 121
No: 27
Personal Pledge: 110

Santa Barbara ballots cast: 180
Yes: 84
No: 95
Personal Pledge: 70

Santa Cruz ballots cast: 121
Yes: 82
No: 37
Personal Pledge: 73


The lackluster participation in this resolution is more telling than nearly anything else about this vote.Students at the University of California opposed to the resolution plan on appealing,  citing an unfair and undemocratic election.

"This was far from a fair process," said Jonathan Kummerfeld, a member of Informed Grads, a group of rank-and-file United Auto Workers (UAW) 2865 members who formed to oppose BDS in their Union. "Over the past several months, the Union leadership invested thousands of dollars, together with the Union's institutional and human resources to promote a ‘yes' vote"

UPDATE:

Via Jonathan Kummerfeld,in the comment sections:
One small correction - the union represents ~14,000 workers, but it currently has ~40,800 members (any grad can be a member, even if they aren't currently teaching). In addition, any grad could join at the polls, and hundreds did. There are over 52,000 grads in the UC system.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There weren't 13,000 total who could vote. All grad students could vote so it was actually 52,000 total

Jonathan Kummerfeld said...

One small correction - the union represents ~14,000 workers, but it currently has ~40,800 members (any grad can be a member, even if they aren't currently teaching). In addition, any grad could join at the polls, and hundreds did. There are over 52,000 grads in the UC system.