University of California

Biggest Academic Strike In US History Continues

December 4, 2022 Surangya, People's Dispatch. Resistance Report Higher Education, Strike, Unions, University of California, Worker Rights

After over two weeks of the largest higher education strike in US history, postdoctoral employees and academic researchers at the University of California have reached a tentative agreement with the UC system. The agreement will lead to significant wage increases, one of the key demands of the striking workers. However, these university employees will continue the strike action in solidarity with the 36,000 graduate student employees whose demands are yet to be met.After over two weeks of the largest higher education strike in US history, postdoctoral employees and academic researchers at the University of California have reached a tentative agreement with the UC system. The agreement will lead to significant wage increases, one of the key demands of the striking workers. However, these university employees will continue the strike action in solidarity with the 36,000 graduate student employees whose demands are yet to be met.

The Academic Proles On The Barricades

December 1, 2022 Harold Meyerson, Portside. Resist! California, Education, Strikes, University of California, Worker Rights and Jobs

In her 2019 book Squeezed, Alissa Quart gave a name to the middle class that was just getting by in today’s middle-class-unfriendly economy: the middle precariat. One group that may just manage to ascend, wobbily, to the ranks of the precarious middle are the 12,000 striking postdoctoral scholars who reached a tentative agreement with the University of California earlier today to boost their wages and benefits. Under the agreement, which will shortly be presented to the postdocs for an up-or-down vote, the scholars will receive raises of between 20 percent and 23 percent to take effect next year, as well as a couple thousand dollars in child care assistance. By my very rough calculations, that should put them in the lower ranks of the mid-precar, with annual incomes in the mid-40 thousands—not enough to get a decent rental in coastal California, but able to buy a good-sized car to sleep in.

This Year’s Biggest Strike Is By 48,000 University Of California Workers

November 24, 2022 Kenzo Esquivel, Labor Notes. Resist! California, Education, Strikes, University of California, Worker Rights and Jobs

California - Across the prestigious University of California system, tens of thousands of workers walked off the job last week for the nation’s largest strike of 2022, and the largest strike of academic workers in U.S. history. The energy was palpable as nearly 5,000 academic workers gathered at UC-Berkeley’s campus November 14 to launch our strike. Any last-minute worries dissolved as I stepped onto campus and heard my colleagues, strike captains, undergraduate students, and community members chanting, “48,000 workers strong, we can fight all day long!” Over the first week of our strike we shut down classes and lab operations, felt the solidarity from Teamsters drivers and building trades workers who honored our 5 a.m. pickets, marched with our students to the university president’s mansion, and showed the UC just how organized we are—and how ready we are to win big.

Largest Strike In The Country Unfolds Across All Ten UC Campuses

November 15, 2022 Fair UC Now. Resist! California, Education, Strikes, University of California, Worker Rights and Jobs

Berkeley, California – 48,000 UAW-represented employees of the University of California will walk off the job and onto the picket line as a multi-unit, statewide Unfair Labor Practices strike begins this morning. UAW represents Academic Workers across ten campuses and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, including Teaching Assistants, Postdocs, Academic Student Employees, Graduate Student Researchers, Academic Researchers, Readers, Tutors and more. Together they perform the majority of teaching and research at UC. “We have been bargaining throughout the weekend and while important progress has been made, we are still far apart on many of the issues that will make UC a more equitable university: dignified compensation that addresses the crisis of affordable housing, access to transportation benefits so those who must commute can do so affordably and with a minimal carbon footprint, Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition Remission, and appointment lengths,” said Rafael Jaime, President of UAW 2865.

48,000 Unionized Workers Across University Of California Begin Voting On Strike Authorization

October 29, 2022 Mark Alfred, Daily Nexus. Resist! California, Education, Strike, Unions, University of California, Worker Rights and Jobs

California - The three UC unions under the United Auto Workers (UAW) — Student Researchers United (SRU), UAW 5810 representing both postdoctoral and academic student researchers in separate bargaining units and UAW 2865 representing teaching assistants (TA), graduate student instructors, tutors and readers — each Organized strike votes across their four bargaining units from Oct. 26 through Nov. 2. If passed, the votes would give respective unions the power to call a strike should they choose, but would not guarantee they will. UAW 2865’s recording secretary, fourth-year UC Santa Barbara history Ph.D. candidate and TA Janna Haider is one of two representatives from UCSB on the union’s bargaining team.

Education Reparation: UC Tuition Scholarships For Natives Are Just

June 13, 2022 Randall Akee, Indian Country Today. Create! Education, Indigenous Rights, Reparations, University of California

The University of California system is one of the largest and most prestigious post-secondary educational institutions in the country. Its beginnings 170 years ago were as fraught as they were humble. The Morrill Act enabled the creation of land-grant colleges, which were resourced by the sale of federal lands. These lands were, in many cases, stewarded by tribes, and they ended up in the hands of the federal government sometimes by treaty and often through seizure. Although a critical driving force behind California’s continued economic and technological successes, UC has not been sufficiently accessible to the very people whose dispossession was core to its founding. In a monumental move, the State of California is looking to correct historical injustice and promote greater inclusiveness of Native Americans, a group that to this day encounters numerous systemic barriers to post-secondary education.

California’s Grim Genocidal Past Implicates University Of California

November 20, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Indigenous People, Indigenous Rights, University of California

The United States of America is founded on the original sin of Native American genocide and the myth that the Indigenous Peoples that lived on these lands for thousands of years had no right to it. White settler colonialism is not just a stain on the country’s history, it is its very raison d’etre. To this day, all non-Native Americans live on stolen land. The prosperous, liberal state of California is not exempt from this original sin, nor has it made reparations for the devastation of Indigenous Peoples and their lands. In a recently reissued book, Tony Platt, the acclaimed author of 10 books and professor emeritus who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and California State University, Sacramento, uncovers another more recent abhorrence committed against Native Californians by one of the state’s most revered institutions, the University of California, Berkeley.

UC Santa Cruz Reinstates Graduate Students After Months-Long Strike

August 12, 2020 Lauren Kaori Gurley, Vice. Resist! Higher Education, Strikes, University of California, Worker Rights and Jobs

The University of California has agreed to reinstate 41 UC Santa Cruz graduate student workers who were fired in March after waging a months-long ‘wildcat’ strike. The strike for a cost of living adjustment galvanized students at nearly every single campus in the UC’s 285,000-student system. Last week, following months of protests, campus negotiations, and outcry from elected officials, the University of California agreed to reinstate the 41 teaching assistants. The university also agreed to offer the 41 students, who had lost their teaching appointments, an additional quarter of funding and an employment guarantee for the upcoming academic year.

Barricades Go Up In Santa Cruz As UC Wide Wildcat Strike Expands Following Firings

March 10, 2020 Staff, Itsgoingdown.org Resist! Strikes, University of California, Worker Rights and Jobs

Starting at around 4:30 AM, barricades went up outside of the entrances to the University of California in Santa Cruz (UCSC), effectively shutting down the campus. Over the next 8 hours, thousands of students, faculty, and staff took part in mass rallies and marches across almost the entire UC system, as more campuses announced that they were also joining the wildcat strike which had begun in Santa Cruz in early February.

University Of California Workers Start 3-Day Strike Over Pay

May 14, 2018 Olga R. Rodriguez, Apnews.com Resist! Class Struggle, Strikes, University of California, Workers Rights and Jobs

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Thousands of custodians, security guards, gardeners and other service workers at University of California campuses started a three-day strike Monday to address pay inequalities and demand higher wages. Strikers gathered at sunrise on the 10 campuses throughout the state, wearing green T-shirts and carrying signs that call for “equality, fairness, respect.” The strike was called last week by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents 25,000 service workers, after the union and the university could not agree on a new contract and mediation efforts failed. Another 29,000 nurses, pharmacists, radiologists and other medical workers heeded the service workers’ call for a sympathy strike and will join the walkouts Tuesday and Wednesday, which is expected to disrupt thousands of surgeries and other appointments.

UCSB Chancellor Backs Call To Divest From Fossil Fuel Companies

May 13, 2017 Staff, www.pacbiztimes.com Resist! Divestment, Fossil Fuels, University of California

By Staff for Pacific Coast Business Times - After a four-day sit-in, UC Santa Barbara students won the endorsement of Chancellor Henry Yang on the divestiture of the University of California’s $2.8 billion in its endowment from fossil fuel companies. Margaret Klawunn, vice president of student affairs, delivered the statement May 11 on behalf of the chancellor at Cheadle Hall, where around 400 students, faculty and staff took part in the sit-in. “In the coming week, I look forward to working with my fellow chancellors in support of a thorough and transparent discussion on divestment from fossil fuels as part of the UC’s approach to combating the climate crisis,” Yang’s statement said. Investments should instead go toward more sustainable companies, said Cassie Macy, a spokeswoman for the student group Fossil Free UCSB that organized the protest. The first step is to get out of fossil fuels, Macy said, but “we’ve shown them that investments in sustainable companies have almost no difference in financial results. So we think that it’s very important that we invest in these companies that will better our future.” The effects of climate change affect marginalized communities most strongly, said fellow spokeswoman Celeste Argueta, including air quality and coastal erosion.

How Environmental Injustice Connects To Police Violence

July 26, 2016 Brentin Mock, www.citylab.com Educate! Environmental Justice, Police violence, University of California

By Brentin Mock for City Lab - As the nation continues to process the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, it’s worth keeping in mind that the circumstances of those killings were not all the same. And demonstrators across the country aren’t only protesting police violence against black citizens. They’re also venting grievances about their own stifling living conditions, under which it’s often difficult to ride, walk, or even breathe without police suffocating black lives further.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi On Investigatory Leave

April 30, 2016 Sam Stanton And Diana Lambert, www.sacbee.com Educate! Student Activism, University of California

By Sam Stanton And Diana Lambert for The Sacramento Bee - “Information has recently come to light that raises serious questions about whether Chancellor Katehi may have violated several University of California policies, including questions about the campus’s employment and compensation of some of the chancellor’s immediate family members, the veracity of the chancellor’s accounts of her involvement in contracts related to managing both the campus’s and her personal reputation on social media, and the potential improper use of student fees,” Napolitano’s office said in a statement issued Wednesday night.

UC Davis Defends Paying To Remove Pepper-Spray References From Internet

April 21, 2016 Sarah Parvini, www.latimes.com Educate! Higher Education, University of California

By Sarah Parvini for Los Angeles Times - UC Davis is defending its decision to pay consultants at least $175,000 to clean up its online image after students and alumni were pepper sprayed by police in 2011. Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale) called on UC Davis' chancellor to resign, citing the payment and other issues that have roiled the campus. UC Davis officials released a statement late Thursday saying, "Increased investment in social media and communications strategy has heightened the profile of the university to good effect."

UC Davis Spent Thousands To Scrub Pepper-Spray References

April 15, 2016 Sam Stanton And Diana Lambert, www.sacbee.com Resist! Higher Education, Student Activism, University of California

By Sam Stanton And Diana Lambert for The Sacramento Bee - Following the 2011 pepper spraying of students, the campus hired consultants to improve the online reputations of UC Davis and Chancellor Linda Katehi. Sam Stanton The Sacramento Bee. UC Davis contracted with consultants for at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative online postings following the November 2011 pepper-spraying of students and to improve the reputations of both the university and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, newly released documents show.

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