Graduate workers including teaching assistants and student researchers, academic researchers and postdoctoral scholars in the University of California system have voted to authorize a strike which could be the largest in higher education history in the US.
Their unions – UAW 5810, UAW 2865 and SRU-UAW – representing 48,000 workers are currently negotiating union contracts for four separate bargaining units. They are coordinating to push increased compensation, childcare reimbursements, job security protections, sustainable transit incentives, eliminating fees for international scholars and stronger disability accommodations.
A strike date has been set for 14 November.
Bernard Remollino, a researcher and teaching assistant at UCLA, spent the majority of the 2018-2019 academic year living out of his car because he couldn’t afford spending 85% or more of his income on rent.
“The academic year 2018 to 2019, I spent most of it living out of my car because the rent situation in Los Angeles was untenable both in the graduate student housing and in the private market apartments in LA,” said Remollino. “It is physically draining trying to scrimp and save and feeling that those efforts were in vain. There had to be more dignity to the work than that.”
He voted in favor of the strike authorization so no other graduate workers have to experience the same economic precarity he did – experiences that drive and deter people out of academia.
“This action is happening because of UC’s failure to support a diverse workforce. That failure undermines the quality of research and education,” added Remollino. “UC works because we do. It functions off the intellectual, emotional and physical labor of its academic workers, but despite our contributions, we work in difficult conditions while being severely undercompensated.”
The strike authorization vote was initiated after 6,000 academic workers in the University of California system called for action after filing more than 20 unfair labor practice charges against the university.
The charges include claims that the University of California is refusing to bargain in good faith, has refused to furnish information to the unions, refused to discuss certain subjects, unilaterally changed working conditions and engaged in direct dealing with departments and workers rather than with the unions.
“[What] we want is the opportunity to just sit down and settle a contract without UC engaging in unfair labor practices,” said Janna Haider, a graduate researcher at UC Santa Barbara and bargaining team member for UAW 2865.
She currently spends 49% of her income on rent and has frequently had to take on side jobs to make ends meet. Haider criticized the classification of graduate workers as part-time workers capped at 20 hours a week, as graduate and research work demands workers devote much more time than that to progress.
The unions are calling for a minimum annual salary of $54,000 for all grad workers and $70,000 salary for postdoctoral scholars, citing the increasing costs of living, especially in regards to high inflation and soaring rent. A membership survey by the unions found 92% of graduate workers and 61% of postdoctoral scholars are rent burdened, spending more than one-third of their income on monthly rent.
“We’re fighting so those of us who do the majority of teaching and research do not have to live with severe rent burdens and debt, while highly paid administrators live in publicly funded mansions,” said Rafael Jaime, a graduate worker at UCLA in the english department and president of UAW 2865.
Some 11,000 postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers participated in the strike authorization vote, many of them international researchers.
Dr Hannah Waterhouse, a postdoctoral scholar in soil science at UC Berkeley, currently commutes over four hours round trip daily by train from Sacramento to Berkeley for work because of how unaffordable rent is in the area near campus. Even living so far away, she and her partner still need to live with a roommate in order to afford an apartment.
“It’s just feeling barely sustainable at this point and I actually personally know a few people who’ve passed up on applying to UC jobs, because the pay doesn’t match the cost of living,” said Dr Waterhouse.
Dr Neal Sweeney, a postdoctoral scholar in molecular biology at UC Santa Cruz and president of UAW Local 5810, said: “We have an opportunity here to really transform the university in really positive, progressive ways. With the University of California being one of the largest university systems in the US, what we’re able to achieve will really impact people elsewhere.”
The University of California did not respond to multiple requests for comment.