It is time for the University of California (UC) to start compensating its graduate student workers properly.
A large group of protesters carried signs that read “ON STRIKE UNLAWFUL LABOR PRACTICES” and broadcasted their cause at the UC Irvine Student Center on Nov. 14.
The protestors demonstrated by walking in a continuous circle, marching to other locations and dancing in front of UC Irvine’s Langson Library. Some wore bright red shirts from the United Auto Workers (UAW) 2865 while some carried their own handmade signs in support of the graduate student workers at UCI. Spanish language music filled the air as the demonstrators chanted “We are power” or “Escucha escucha estamos el la lucha.” The protesters were not just graduate students or academic workers; undergraduate students demonstrated their support for the cause as well.
For many of them, attending any of the pickets and showing support is their first protest either ever or at UCI. Undergraduates showing support for a cause that doesn’t directly affect them has proven the immense support the UCI community has for the academic workers here. The question is: will UC respond in a similar way? Overall, the protest sent a loud, strong message to UC Irvine and all other UC campuses: the mistreatment of academic workers needs to stop.
Starting Nov. 14, graduate student workers across all 10 UC campuses began the first UC labor strike of the 2020s. Demands by the laborers, organized within UAW 2865, include an annual pay raise of $30,000 and full healthcare benefits. These asks are not only fair; they are vital to ensuring laborers are compensated ethically. These negotiations also carry a heavy burden as they may affect other large scale union negotiations. The latest four-year labor contract expired in June 2022. Across the UC system, 48,000 workers are expected to set the picket line, a boundary where all UC affiliated people are asked to not cross. Protests have been organized in solidarity with these underserved workers at every UC campus as well.
This strike comes after the last labor contract between UAW 2865 and the UC system ended in a loss for workers in 2018 with no strike. Research done by students at UC Santa Barbara found that some workers in UAW 2865 found the contract “regressive and prematurely ratified.” While the prior contract successfully added some sexual harrassment protections, it ultimately failed to improve healthcare and housing benefits. These benefits are not only necessary to graduate student workers, but laborers in general.
The UC system employs 227,000 people; every single one of them deserves housing, food and fiscal security via a fair contract. Now, these benefits are being demanded, and rightfully so. Because of the UC system’s lack of consideration to negotiate this contract in good faith, it stands to lose the necessary labor of its graduate student workers. It is unfortunate, but clear — the University of California does not value its graduate student workers enough.
Graduate students who assist professors are not merely teachers’ assistants (TAs). The responsibilities of a graduate student worker include a variety of lecturing, grading, reading and leading discussions. The importance of graduate students in undergraduate education is more than their responsibilities at face value. Often at massive public research facilities, like UC Irvine and other UC campuses, undergraduate lectures can have hundreds of students. On account of this, these graduate students lead their own smaller classes. These discussion classes are vital to the understanding of lecture material. It is in part due to these graduate student worker-led classes that undergraduates at UC campuses can better digest lecture material and have their questions answered in a more intimate learning environment.
As a result of the strike, these classes have been temporarily canceled, harming UC undergraduates across the state. Leading these discussions, paired with the administrative duties that every graduate student worker carries — along with still being a student — creates a massive workload that these laborers should be adequately compensated for. Without these essential student workers, it would be impossible to carry on instruction at any UC campus.
New University interviewed Tien Le, a teaching assistant for the English department at UC Irvine and department steward for the regional studies program at UAW 2865.
“What we are fighting for is a fair contract that will protect everyone from being rent burdened,” Le said. Le himself has experienced devastating effects from UCI illegally rescinding his offer to work last summer. In order to get his job back, Le had to file a grievance. “Without that job, I would have been behind on paying rent,” he said. Le is one of the many UAW workers at UC Irvine who have been financially burdened by the multitude of illegal actions the UC system continues to force on their academic workers.
Unfortunately, Le’s situation is not unique. Especially in cities like Irvine — where the cost of living is 49% higher than the national average — it is impossible to live alone on the mere $24,000 a year that UAW 2865 workers are paid. These cities where UC campuses are located, by design, are in extremely wealthy regions. UC Los Angeles, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara are all located in cities with varying degrees of a housing crisis. It is laughable that the UC system believes a $24,000 wage with minimal health benefits is enough to live anywhere in California, let alone near UC campuses in high cost of living cities.
The University of California needs to follow each demand verbatim; their means of education would cease to exist without graduate student workers. There should be no world where students who are pursuing masters and doctoral degrees at the top public school system in the world are living paycheck to paycheck.
Jacob Ramos and Skylar Paxton are Opinion Interns for the fall 2022 quarter. They can be reached at jacobtr@uci.edu and paxtons@uci.edu respectively.
