Comment In the largest work stoppage of the year, thousands of academic workers in the University of California system went on strike Monday over the university system’s bargaining practices with their union, which is trying to secure higher wages. About 48,000 assistant professors, postdocs, researchers and evaluators on the front lines of teaching and research in California’s prestigious public university system are calling for a $54,000 annual minimum salary and increased child care benefits, saying they don’t earn enough to live in the state. They also accuse the university of not bargaining in good faith with their union, the United Auto Workers. “At every turn, the university has tried to act illegally at the bargaining table, which is preventing us from reaching an agreement,” said Neal Sweeney, president of UAW Local 5810, which represents more than 11,000 UC postdocs and academic researchers. The University of California strike is also the largest academic strike in higher education in US history, according to the UAW. Bargaining units representing academic workers at UC said university leadership has illegally made changes to pay and transit allowances without consulting the union. They also claimed the university refused to provide necessary information about who is on the bargaining unit and otherwise obstructed the bargaining process. Negotiations have been underway for more than a year. University officials have denied allegations that their negotiators broke the law during negotiations. They said they had made good faith efforts to negotiate, as evidenced by a series of tentative agreements the parties have already reached. Ryan King, a spokesman for the UC system, said school leaders listened to the unions’ priorities, gave fair answers and showed a “real willingness to compromise.” “Our primary goal in these negotiations is to reach multi-year agreements that recognize the significant and valuable contributions these employees make to the University’s teaching and research mission with fair wages, quality health and family-friendly benefits, and a supportive and respectful work environment,” King said. he said in a statement. The strike threatens to disrupt classes, research and grading ahead of final exams at the UC system’s 10 campuses. Students should rely solely on instructors for grades, instruction, and other individual instruction. University administrators and the union continued to meet over the weekend into Sunday afternoon, with some progress toward an agreement, but union officials said they remained far apart on the key wage issue. In the days leading up to the strike, some tenured UC faculty said they had the right to cancel classes during the walkout and spoke out in solidarity with academic workers. Howard Schultz’s fight to stop a Starbucks barista revolt The United Auto Workers is asking UC leadership for a minimum salary of $54,000 for all graduate students and a minimum salary of $70,000 for all postdocs, as well as annual cost-of-living adjustments in contract negotiations. Many graduate students earn in the low $20,000s a year, and postdocs earn at least $55,631. The union also demanded $2,000 a month in childcare allowances, extended paid parental leave and public transport passes for its members. The labor market is still hot — and it’s helping union organizers The university system has offered salary increases ranging from 4 percent to 7 percent in the first year of the contract, with smaller subsequent increases. Workers have rejected these offers, saying they are too low. For example, many assistant professors would earn less than $30,000 a year under the university’s proposal. University negotiators also offered childcare stipends of between $2,500 and $4,050 a year and some transit subsidies. Some workers receive $3,300 in child care subsidies a year. Workers said the proposed annual allowance would barely cover a month of childcare. But, the union said, bigger wage increases are paramount to winning a contract that improves the quality of life for their members. University leadership maintains that “providing fair and competitive pay to all employees is a UC priority and essential to ensuring the excellence of our workforce and the quality of our services to students and the public,” administrators said. UC in a press release. Biden signs deal on rail strike, but worker discontent emerges The increased activism over cost-of-living demands in the UC system follows a wave of unauthorized “wildcat” strikes that erupted at UC Santa Cruz and spread to a number of UC campuses in 2021. Workers demanded cost-of-living benefits to blame for the strike of housing prices in the state. After the strikes, UC Santa Cruz agreed to increase housing allowances for teaching assistants. The union said the vast majority of UC graduate students spend more than a third of their income on rent. For example, teaching assistants at UCLA earn an average of $24,000 a year, the union said. The median annual rent in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area is more than $36,000 per year, according to Realtor.com. UC assistant professors described commuting hours away for affordable housing, donating blood plasma to get by and paying more than half their income in rent. Jacob Kemner, a doctoral student in environmental studies at UC Riverside, makes about $28,000 a year and donates blood plasma twice a week for about $200 in extra income. “I make ends meet by selling plasma,” Kemner said. “I’m less able to be efficient at my job as a result of this because I spend six to 10 hours going to and from the plasma donation center. If I didn’t spend time on it, I could plan and grade the course.” The largest private sector nurse strike in US history begins in Minnesota Aya Konisha, a teaching assistant and second-year doctoral student in UCLA’s sociology department, said she can’t afford to live close to campus and has to commute an hour on public transit to get to school. “My salary is definitely not enough to get by,” said Konisha, whose rent is half her monthly income of $2,400. “I make all my food at home. I don’t do any expensive shopping and often skip meals when I have to teach. UCLA is supposed to be the number one public university in the United States … but it is grossly unfair.” The United Auto Workers has filed 28 unfair labor practice claims against the UC system this year for failure to bargain in good faith. The state of California is investigating the allegations and has issued two complaints against the UC system. UC officials denied those allegations and said that despite the allegations, the system “remains committed to continuing its good faith efforts to reach agreements with the UAW as soon as possible.” In August 2021, the UAW, which has been making inroads into higher education, won over 17,000 student researchers in its biggest union victory of the year. Earlier this month, the UAW announced that 97 percent of more than 36,000 workers who voted across the UC system had approved an unfair labor practice strike. Before the strike, 36 California lawmakers sent letters to UC President Michael Drake, urging him to prevent the strike by “stopping unfair labor practices.”
