dan

This is an excellent question, alas I don't have a good answer.

During the UC strike there was huge tension between the interests of graduate students (who were on strike for good reasons) and undergraduate students (who were trying to finish their degrees, also for good reasons).

In my experience with pickets lines just showing up to line and walking the picket with them its the most basic thing. Especially if its late at night or early in the morning those are the hours where there are the fewest people lowest energy so someone showing up can be huge help. But if there is a strike there with be websites and social media for the union that will likely tell you and other members of the public how to help. this is any article that I think has good tips it focuses on game workers but I think it applies more broadly: https://medium.com/game-workers-of-southern-california/a-players-guide-to-supporting-the-labor-movement-in-games-a59d3d698cce

sorry to reply a couple days late but: as a uni worker who was on strike at around the same time UC (though at a uni in a completely different country), the one thing that really helps is just sheer numbers. our strike did not go as well as UC’s due to numbers dropping hard towards the end of our 3-week strike, both in terms of people actually striking AND people actively picketing (the latter of which im guilty of dropping due to an injury). by the end of it we kept having to close picket lines due to safety concerns about being around aggressive anti-union drivers and our uni was able to spin that plus the 50% scabbing rate into “see, nobody gives a shit about this union and they’re taking their anger out on these poor widdle undergrads when we were so generous”. do not let them spin the narrative that way, whether on social media or official communications

also, if your uni already had a collective agreement with their workers, they very likely have stipulations surrounding how they’re (legally) allowed to carry out the strike. for us, we were not allowed to be on our (huge) campus property at ALL, to the point where a 5-minute walk through campus had to be turned into a 20-minute march all the way around it to attend a demo on the opposite side of campus from where our picket line was. however… students who aren’t formally part of the strike can take their demonstrations to places where it’d be riskier for the union to do, i.e. occupying admin’s offices or on-campus demonstrations

ALSO also, (ONLY IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT, please dont put yourself in dire financial straits if you cant), donate to strike funds or, better yet, ask striking staff with whom you have some sort of relation if you can help cover their bills for the duration of the strike even if its just paying for a meal or two. personally i could have afforded to be on strike for the rest of my contract if it came to that; my immediate coworkers could not, so i offered to send them grocery money during the strike and help them apply for financial aid from the strike fund. the reason i say just straight-up give money directly to people as opposed to donating is because a lot of people who could qualify for that financial aid dont apply to it, either bc they think they “dont qualify” or its not well-publicised

caveat: i was also an undergrad student at the same time as being on strike so i had a horse in both the “this strike is disruptive to my education” race AND the “this is admin’s fault, we deserve better” race. if you’re pro-union and pro-strike you are going to get pushback from your peers or even scabbing members of the union. you’re especially going to get “but they get paid more than i do!” or “but it’s just a student job, its not meant to support them!” (if applicable). setting aside that strikes arent JUST about wages or that good wages =/= good pay due to lack of hours, it might be worth reminding them that, they too deserve to be treated better in the workplace