The dispute over whether the university can legally hire permanent replacements for the strikers centers on competing visions of what type of strike is happening. The union says that it is out on an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike, in which case it would be illegal to permanently replace strikers. The university, meanwhile, holds that the workers are out on an economic strike, in which case replacing them would be legal.
“We are on a ULP strike. We’ve filed several ULPs,” says Johannah King-Slutzky, a union member involved in negotiations. In fact, she says, the charges the union has filed mean that they are, in essence, on both a ULP and an economic strike at once.