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Why are academic student employees at the UCs striking?

Taylor Mac - People Have the Power - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joTwxlOEQVA

I would like to take some time during today’s lecture to explain why 48,000 workers are going on strike on Nov 14.

I know that many of you have spent nearly 2 years attending classes on zoom, and that you may be concerned that your learning is going to be further disrupted by the strike. Indeed, grading and teaching are interrupted by recent strike activity, and we’re doing our best to mitigate any harmful effects, but please understand that without graduate students receiving a living wage, there are no graduate students, and there is, therefore, no teaching and grading in the first place.

Please understand that this level of urgency isn’t limited to grads either: lecturers, dining staff, custodians, and undergrads are under immense pressure by UC administration, and we’ll go through these pressing issues to see how we can think of a different public university than the one we have today.

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On Nov 14, over 48,000 academic student employees at the UC will be going on strike

Starting Monday, Nov 14, 48,000 Academic Student Employees represented by three unions have authorized a strike action with a vote of more than 97.5% in support.

Extended negotiations with the UC administration have resulted in almost 30 Unfair Labor Practice charges against the university; and their basic demands for a contract remain unmet.

This is a historic moment: it is the most decisive strike authorization vote in the history of academic workers in the US. That should tell us just how bad the living and working conditions of your TAs and other academic student employees are. The strike would be one of the largest higher education labor actions in history, sending a powerful message across and beyond the UC system to all precarious and rent-burdened graduate, adjunct, and service workers in higher education. This goes far beyond what these employees are being paid, so today we’re going to zoom out a bit and talk about how the university relies on underpaid graduate and undergraduate labor, and how we got here.

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Academic Labor in the UC

Graduate students provide 30-40% of total academic labor
UC estimates cost of grad education at 2.5x that of und. vs. state finances 1 / 1
Graduate students can only work at 50%
Typically work 30-40 hours per week
Have undergrad student debt accrued
There are fewer and fewer secure jobs for graduating PhDs in the hum and ss

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What is a strike? What makes them a powerful tool for workers?

A strike is a form of protest characterized by the collective withdrawal of workers’ labor power�
It sends a strong message to employers that it is workers that make production possible: workers create all wealth - not employers! The collective power of workers thus lies in their capacity to bring production to a halt�
In the UC system, graduate workers and ASEs are central to the production of research and teaching. The UC would not function without their underpaid labor

Strikes begin because of grievances against an employer – mostly private companies, but sometimes public institutions such as the UC.

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Why are graduate workers

striking?

Graduate students provide 30-40% of total academic labor
Graduate students usually only work at 50%
Typically work 30-40 hours per week
Have undergrad student debt accrued
There are fewer and fewer secure jobs for graduating PhDs in the hum and social sciences
Graduate students are simply not paid enough to live here!

More videos like this can be found at: https://www.fairucnow.org/

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What are graduate workers demanding?

An increase in salaries to combat rising costs of living — over 85% of UC graduate students are rent-burdened

A typical teaching assistant at UCSB pays 51 percent of their wages to housing costs at average rates. Many pay much more.
There has been a dramatic rise in the cost of living across California and UC campuses. As a result, graduate students across the UC system are facing a significant and growing burden from housing costs.

An increase in childcare reimbursements and benefits for parents
A safe and inclusive workplace

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Does the graduate worker strike have anything to do with undergraduates?

How many of you think the graduate student struggles have something to do with your own experiences?

How many of you, as undergraduates, would also consider yourself rent burdened (30% of your income goes to rent?)

Graduate students want a salary increase not just for themselves, but for ALL: undergraduates, staff, and underrepresented junior faculty.

Graduate students’ teaching conditions are undergraduate learning conditions! �

But this movement is not just about graduate students. How many of you think the graduate students’ struggle has something to do with your own experiences?

How many of you, as undergraduates, would also consider yourself rent burdened (30% of your income goes to rent?) --- Get them to think about their percentage of rent burden (monthly rent divided by monthly pay x 100)

Talk to each other about your experience of housing in Goleta / IV / Santa Barbara.

Graduate students’ teaching conditions are undergraduate learning conditions!
Graduate students are indispensable workers who cannot be expected to execute their teaching duties and to pursue their own research when housing and food costs are not affordable with their current wages.
graduate students are arguing that they should be compensated at a level that makes it possible for them to flourish on campus as research assistants, teachers, and emerging scholars.
A fair wage correlated with cost of living increases is a necessary precondition for their own work, essential to fulfilling the educational mandate of their departments, and essential for the dignity of all workers at the university.

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Why Should Undergrads Support a Grad strike?

Graduate students recognize that many undergraduates struggle with cost-of-living expenses as well, and your hourly pay as university employees often isn’t enough to cover them.
The graduate employee strike is not meant to undermine this fact or draw attention away from it.
Graduate employees encourage and offer our support to undergraduate organizing concerning the rising cost of living, tuition hikes, and the need for higher wages.
Graduate students are bargaining for a contract because it will help to alleviate some of the financial strain that prevents us from doing our jobs to the best of our abilities. Many graduate students work multiple jobs in order to support themselves (and partners, children, parents, or other dependents).
International students: your faculty and graduate students are working to make sure that you are not unduly affected. Any grade disruptions will not affect your credits or Visa status.

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Debt and the Erosion of Public Education�

These costs have far outstripped rises in median incomes
The long-term negative socioeconomic impacts of educational debt on inequality are dramatic
These negative effects disproportionately hurt black and POC graduates and their families

The public mission of public universities has been eroded since the 1960s as the result of an overtly ideological project to equate public education with socialism and communism
Student debt is at record levels
The costs of public university education has increased dramatically

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The 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education�

Clark Kerr, UC President 1960
Tuition-free access to higher education in public universities
University of California
California State
Community Colleges
Guaranteed transfer from�CC to universities for�bachelor’s completion

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The 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education�

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Ronald Reagan, Governor 1966

Virulently opposed to Civil Rights and Anti-War Movements on US Campuses
“Red baiting” Cold War politics of fear and division

Platform as CA Governor (1967-75)

Reduce taxes
Reduce regulation
Reduce social welfare policies
Disinvest from public education, which he saw as a creeping form of socialism

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/from-master-plan-to-no-plan-the-slow-death-of-public-higher-education

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Rising Costs of Education�

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Mehta and Bleemer (2019); data from: UC Information center, UCSB planning and databook.

State Disinvestment from the University of CA

Austerity has done severe damage to the public sector for years. State spending per university student was cut by nearly 40 percent between 2000 and 2016.

This graph shows state funding in blue, and tuition in red. So you can see that as state funding per student has gone down, from about $15,000 per student in 2003 to $11,000 in 2016, Tuition itself has increased, from about 10k in 2003 to 18k in 2016.
Education is becoming more expensive, as state investments in that education are going down

In fact, Since 1971, higher education costs have increased 145%.

And, as tuition has gone up, student loans have also risen astronomically - 120% in 10 years.

Last year's bachelor's degree graduates had on average $29,200 in cumulative student debt, 2 percent more than their peers the year before.

How many of you will be going into debt by the end of your education here?

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Rising Costs of Education�

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/18/student-debt-has-kept-home-ownership-out-reach-young-families-fed-reports/

Student debt has kept home ownership out of reach for 400,000 young families, Fed reports

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As tuition costs increase, and more and more students go into debt in order to finance their education, we start to see that this has far-reaching effects on upward social mobility. College used to be a surefire way to gain upward mobility. You could go to college, get an education, get a degree, get a good job. But now that you have to pay so much to get there, the costs of university education have become quite the reverse: an impediment to your social mobility.

For example, student debt has kept home ownership out of reach for 400,000 young families.

In a current market where the state has disinvested from social services, home ownership has become one of the ways to get equity through rising home prices. The fact that student debt takes a significant portion out of graduates’ monthly income means that you have less disposable income, which has to go toward rent, food, medical bills, childcare, etc etc., leaving you with less to save toward a house.

So if you see it in this incremental way, student debt, which holds you hostage over years, often decades, has kept home ownership out of reach for 400,000 young families.

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Rising Costs of Education�

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https://www.brookings.edu/research/black-white-disparity-in-student-loan-debt-more-than-triples-after-graduation/

Racial disparities in Student Loan Debt Four Years After Graduation

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TAs’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions. In many large classes, graduate students can sometimes be undergraduates’ most direct mentors in the classroom. They do most of the grading in classes with TAs
As undergraduates, you should have the right to decide what your tuition fees support: right now, they support administrative salaries, faculty salaries, buildings, and programs, but they barely support paying the people who teach, educate you, and assess your work.
Undergraduate education is harmed when TAs are tired, hungry, rent-burdened, and unable to afford medical care.

So given all this, aren’t undergraduates being harmed by the strike?

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Undergraduate students are being harmed by the administration, who have effectively extended the strike by consistently refusing to negotiate in good faith with graduate students
If the administration were to fire TAs, it would lower the quality of undergraduate education by forcing departments to

1) reduce total enrollments in classes that are required for undergraduate degree completion;
2) hire inexperienced course assistants; or
3) suspend sections, preventing undergraduates from accessing the small-scale discussions that are integral to their learning.

Are undergraduates being harmed by the strike?

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Graduate students have consciously worked to mitigate any deleterious effects of the strike on undergraduate students

Graduate students have also used the strike as a teaching opportunity to talk about the history of labor movements, the university, social and economic justice, active citizenship, and civic participation.

The strike is a learning opportunity! Learning happens in lots of places outside the classroom!

Are undergraduates being harmed by the strike?

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What about staff? Aren’t they underpaid too?

Yes, staff are underpaid, and it is shameful.
We should be organizing with them, too! Many staff are organized through AFSCME and the Teamsters, and they deserve our support
We live in a society that pits us all against one another.
Denying graduate students a cost of living adjustment/housing stipend/etc. will not improve the material circumstances for staff.
But, a cost of living adjustment/housing stipend/etc. for graduate students may improve the bargaining position for staff in future negotiations.

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But where will the money come from?

The UC’s annual budget is $46 billion
Salary for Michael Drake, President of the UC, is $849,792
In 2021, 1268 employees across the 10 UC campuses earned at least $500,000 in gross pay. This far exceeds other major public school systems in the US
In 2017, a state audit found that UC president’s office paid excessive salaries to top staff and mishandled budget money
The 2021 annual budget of UCPD was $156 million and the cost of police presence to monitor the 2020 protests cost $300,000 a day�
The money exists! The question is where it is allocated.

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Budgets always reflect a set of values and priorities.
If bargaining is successful, the salary raise that graduate students and ASEs will receive would cost, in total, less than 2% of the UC’s yearly operating budget - which is $46 billion for AY 2022-23.
The UC can afford it - easily!
The “66 Percent Fix” is one analysis of what it would cost to address the financial challenges facing higher education in California. Just $66/year in additional taxes for the median-income family in the state would solve the financial challenges of California’s higher education system.

But where will the money come from?

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UCSB Student Activism, Past and Present

UCSB students taking action to fight for their rights is nothing new! UCSB has a rich, deep student, activist tradition. Examples:
1968 Black Student Union North Hall computer center take-over
1970 student anti-war movement
1989 hunger strike, MCC and Asian American Studies dept. created

1994 Chicanx/Latinx student hunger strike
2000s undocumented student activism
2010 students protest 32% tuition increase passed by Regents

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What can I do to support the strike?

Tell your graduate teaching assistant that you support their strike!
Show up to the picket line in solidarity.
Let your professor know that you will not be showing up to class to honor the picket line
Spread the word! Talk to your classmates and friends. Ask them what they think about their tuition and rent - and use that starting point to help them understand what’s at stake in the strike
Use social media for updates: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @UAW2865sb. Undergraduates are also organizing in support at @undergraduatesforCOLA