We are set to witness a rare and historic occurrence next week — a union of nearly fifty thousand workers launching a strike to defend the right to free speech and demand divestment from Israeli apartheid and genocide.

Today, members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 4811, the union representing forty-eight thousand graduate students and other academic workers in the University of California (UC) system, announced that it will strike on Monday, May 20. The announcement comes after the union voted to authorize a strike earlier this week with 79 percent approval.

Union leadership called the vote in response to UC campuses’ treatment of students who have been protesting in solidarity with Palestine by setting up encampments on their respective campuses. Two weeks ago at UCLA, campus police stood by while pro-Israel counterprotesters violently attacked the encampment; the next day, police cleared out the encampment, arresting over two hundred protesters — many of whom had been attacked less than twenty-four hours earlier.