Thousands of University of California Employees Strike for Higher Pay - The New York Times, Nov. 14, 2022
ioi_ab's bookmarks 2022-11-14
Summary:
"Tens of thousands of academic workers across the University of California system walked out on Monday in one of the nation’s largest strikes in recent years, as teaching assistants, researchers and other university employees called for significant pay increases in the face of rising housing costs.
The walkout, the latest in a wave of union activity in a booming labor market, covers nearly 48,000 unionized campus employees at the prestigious public university system. Classes were disrupted, research slowed and office hours canceled as thousands of workers picketed at campuses from San Diego to Berkeley. Some faculty canceled lectures in sympathy with the strikers or shifted instruction to Zoom to avoid crossing picket lines in the largely pro-labor state.
The university system has said its 10 campuses, where nearly 300,000 students are enrolled, would remain open and that instruction and operations would continue. But the students and employees involved, who are represented by the United Automobile Workers, make up a core work force in classrooms and labs throughout the university system, where most campuses are only a few weeks away from final examinations. The unions involved have not set an end date.
“We’re the ones who perform the majority of the teaching, and we’re the ones who perform the majority of the research,” said Rafael Jaime, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is president of U.A.W. Local 2865, which represents some 19,000 teaching assistants, tutors and other classroom workers...."