California student-teachers in US academia’s biggest-ever strike

Nearly 50,000 teaching assistants and other unionised academic workers went on strike at the 10-campus University of California system, demanding higher wages and better benefits in the biggest-ever job action in US higher education.

Members of four bargaining units representing teaching assistants, postdoctoral scholars, graduate student researchers, and tutors and fellows began the walkout after more than a year of negotiations by some of them, and just weeks before autumn semester final exams at the 300,000-student system.

It is the biggest strike so far in an already active year of labour unrest across the US and, according to organisers, the largest ever in the nation’s academic sector.

Campuses remained open across the California system – home to many of the nation’s top-ranked public institutions – although students reported that some classes were cancelled or otherwise affected, and research operations hindered, as faculty either acted in sympathy with strikers or could not manage grading, tutoring and other services on their own.

California system leaders called their negotiating offer fair, describing it as a first-year increase of 7 per cent on salaries for academic student employees already ranging from $24,874 (£21,132) to $30,893 for half-time employment.

“Under our proposals,” university administrators said in a statement, “wages for UC academic employees would be among the top of the pay scale among the top public research universities, and more comparable to private universities such as Harvard, MIT, and USC.”

Unions representing the workers, however, said that salaries in many instances need to be doubled to keep up with the cost of living, especially in affluent areas around most University of California campuses led by Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego, but also including Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Irvine.

Housing affordability is the major concern in such locations, although the student-workers also have cited high costs of transportation, childcare and healthcare.

“It is abundantly clear that the UC administration does not understand the magnitude of the issues we face,” the four bargaining units, all represented by the United Auto Workers union, said in a joint statement.

The unions are acting at a moment of both promise and peril. Organised labour in the US generally sees a moment of strength, with student instructors and assistants in particular providing a growing share of the workforce at universities looking to hold down costs. Yet graduate students are also relatively abundant, and dependent on their jobs to cover their educational costs.

About 97 per cent of 36,000 participating workers voted earlier this month in favour of the strike, the UAW said. Their four units together represent some 48,000 workers. Unionised employees at the delivery services company UPS, represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, planned to support the strike by halting deliveries to UC campuses.

Three dozen state lawmakers wrote to the California system president, Michael Drake, urging him to take steps to negotiate fairly with the workers to end the strike.

The California system last November reached an agreement on higher salaries and job protections just ahead of a planned strike by about 6,500 lecturers.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com