News: University of California campuses come to a standstill as 48,000 student workers strike for better pay

[Arcadia]

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/02/closed-labs-cancelled-classes-inside-us-higher-education-largest-strike
“Three weeks of strikes by university academics have brought campuses across California to standstill. Labs are closed, assignments go ungraded. Graduate students have walked off the job, professors have cancelled class and even construction staff have put down their tools in solidarity.

…

The strike, which began 14 November, has already seen success – this week the UC system came to an agreement with postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers, agreeing to pay hikes of up to 29%.

Those wage increases are crucial for many workers, Arveson said. For Daniel McKeown, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Irvine, the new agreement means it’s much more likely he will be able to continue in academia and eventually become a professor.

The 39-year-old has two children, a doctorate in physics and more than $100,000 in debt after five years struggling to get by as a graduate student. McKeown’s work as a teaching assistant took up much of his time, interfering with his studies, but he was paid so little he relied on loans to support himself, he said.

“The fact that I worked that hard and all I have to show for it is an extra $100,000 in debt is very infuriating. I have regrets about that. I think maybe it wasn’t worth it to take on that debt,” he said. “We got marched into an impossible situation economically and on every level we weren’t given fair treatment. It was never a fair deal.”

Instead, he watched colleagues forced to leave the field for better-paying jobs: “We get all this training and we end up just working for Microsoft. There’s a lot of us in physics who have been pushed out where we wanted to continue on and continue researching because we couldn’t afford to.

 

… The UC has said its proposal to student employees is “fair and generous” and would place academic employees “at the top of the pay scale among the country’s leading public universities”.

The university, which has emphasized such workers are only part-time, has offered minimum salaries of $28,275 for graduate student researchers and $24,874 for academic student employees. Strikers are asking for a minimum salary of $54,000 for all graduate workers.

Ximena Anleu Gil, a student researcher and graduate student at UC Davis and member of the bargaining team for Student Researchers United, says the university system has failed to come up with a serious offer on wages.

Anleu Gil, who has a disability, says she has been rent-burdened for the entirety of graduate school and forced to live with many roommates and rely on mutual aid and help from her parents in Guatemala to get by.”

ETA:

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Arcadia

[daijobu]

You had me at "Pebbles."  

I wonder how grad student compensation vs. housing costs at UC compared with other comparable schools?  

[Roadrunner]

I have so much to say about this, but will keep my mouth shut. 

[Not_a_Number]

25 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I have so much to say about this, but will keep my mouth shut. 

Well, that's no fun 😂.

PM me if you like. I know people who work in the UC system. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

I have so much to say about this, but will keep my mouth shut. 

I wish we were privy to your thoughts 🙂

 

[Roadrunner]

45 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Well, that's no fun 😂.

PM me if you like. I know people who work in the UC system. 

Very unrelated, but maybe on a separate thread or PM you can give us insight into the quality of UC undergraduate education.  I have a kid who applied and doesn’t want to attend (we forced him to apply). We are likely to pay a lot more to send him to a private somewhere. Wondering if we are total fools. 

[lewelma]

"The university, which has emphasized such workers are only part-time, has offered minimum salaries of $28,275 for graduate student researchers and $24,874 for academic student employees. Strikers are asking for a minimum salary of $54,000 for all graduate workers."

-- Are these grad students?  My ds gets 32K/9months + health insurance + tuition waver and this is for a 15 hour week job (max allowed is 20 hours). This seems very generous to me.  In CA is it just that the cost of living is so high that 54k is reasonable?

[Arcadia]

On 12/2/2022 at 4:51 PM, Arcadia said:

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/02/closed-labs-cancelled-classes-inside-us-higher-education-largest-strike
“The university, which has emphasized such workers are only part-time, has offered minimum salaries of $28,275 for graduate student researchers and $24,874 for academic student employees. Strikers are asking for a minimum salary of $54,000 for all graduate workers.

Ximena Anleu Gil, a student researcher and graduate student at UC Davis and member of the bargaining team for Student Researchers United, says the university system has failed to come up with a serious offer on wages.”

 

40 minutes ago, lewelma said:

"The university, which has emphasized such workers are only part-time, has offered minimum salaries of $28,275 for graduate student researchers and $24,874 for academic student employees. Strikers are asking for a minimum salary of $54,000 for all graduate workers."

-- Are these grad students?  My ds gets 32K/9months + health insurance + tuition waver and this is for a 15 hour week job (max allowed is 20 hours). This seems very generous to me.  In CA is it just that the cost of living is so high that 54k is reasonable?

I have no idea how much Ximena Anleu Gil earns but link shows the pay scale for UCD’s graduate student researchers 

https://grad.ucdavis.edu/understanding-your-student-salary
“

2021-2022 Salary Scale Summary

Employee Title	Title Code	Annual	Monthly	Hourly  (Single/Group)
Associate In (9 mo.)	1506	$48,711 -$57,743	$5,412.33 - $6,415.89	N/A
Associate In (11 mo.)	1511	$54,150 -$66,279	$4,512.50 - $5,523.00	N/A
Graduate Reader	2850			$17.78
Undergraduate Reader	2851			$16.90
Remedial Tutor I	2288			$17.78 / $23.92
Remedial Tutor II	2289			$21.38 / $27.51
Teaching Assistant	2310	$46,493.00	$5,165.89	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step I	3282	$44,011.00	$3,667.58	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step II	3282	$47,435.00	$3,952.92	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step III	3282	$52,604.00	$4,383.67	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step IV	3282	$56,818.00	$4,734.83	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step V	3282	$60,599.00	$5,049.92	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step VI	3282	$63,412.00	$5,284.33	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step VII	3282	$68,492.00	$5,707.67	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step VIII	3282	$73,941.00	$6,161.75	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step IX	3282	$79,873.00	$6,656.08	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step X	3282	$86,239.00	$7,186.58	N/A

[Arcadia]

44 minutes ago, lewelma said:

"The university, which has emphasized such workers are only part-time, has offered minimum salaries of $28,275 for graduate student researchers and $24,874 for academic student employees. Strikers are asking for a minimum salary of $54,000 for all graduate workers."

-- Are these grad students?  My ds gets 32K/9months + health insurance + tuition waver and this is for a 15 hour week job (max allowed is 20 hours). This seems very generous to me.  In CA is it just that the cost of living is so high that 54k is reasonable?

Rent is high if you are married with kids and need to rent a two bedroom apartment. The tech engineers who are single and want to save more would typically rent a one bedroom apartment with two other people. My husband and I were told that the max capacity for renting an apartment in an apartment complex is 3 for 1 bedroom, 5 for two bedrooms and 7 for three bedrooms apartments. Some leasing managers would count only the occupants that are adults as tenants so two adults and two kids could still stay in a one bedroom apartment. 

[lewelma]

What is the monthly rent for a studio?

[Arcadia]

2 minutes ago, lewelma said:

What is the monthly rent for a studio?

Around $3k for UCB’s area generally. Around $2k for something like this https://www.apartments.com/common-bosco-berkeley-ca/qps175w/

However, not all UCs are in high rents areas like UCB, UCLA. For example UCSB has rents as low as $1.2k  https://www.studioplazaapts.com/rates/

[lewelma]

Interesting. My son pays $1700/month for his studio with a monthly salary of 3550. His is definitely not as nice as the 2K one in the picture. Salary for Teaching Assistant is 46K (for 9 months) which would be fine for a 2k apartment and obviously tighter for a 3K apartment. 

[Sneezyone]

They need locality pay and can peg it the federal zip code surveys conducted by the military nationwide.

[rzberrymom]

3 hours ago, lewelma said:

What is the monthly rent for a studio?

Rent in Berkeley is now ~$2k for a bedroom. Not a studio, a room. Studios will run far more. The situation is nuts there.

[lewelma]

Not trying to be argumentative, just really curious about how they can ask for 54K.

Rent in Boston is $1500 for a room. My ds's friend is a TA in the computer science department at MIT and earns less than he does, - $31,500. 

Is it tax? or medical expenses that are substantially higher?

[rzberrymom]

18 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Not trying to be argumentative, just really curious about how they can ask for 54K.

Rent in Boston is $1500 for a room. My ds's friend is a TA in the computer science department at MIT and earns less than he does, - $31,500. 

Is it tax? or medical expenses that are substantially higher?

I believe MIT grad students were also fighting to increase their measly pay recently. 

“With stipends ranging from $3,200 to $3,600 a month, Carter argued, many MIT graduate students living nearby face a "severe rent burden," defined by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development as spending at least half of their income on housing.

Carter said that students spend “a lot of hours — 30, 40 hours a week or more — in the lab, grading, or preparing materials for lectures. We’re generating a lot of value for the university,” Carter said. “We’re all very happy to do it … but this is a job, and we need support.””

 

[Mochi]

This article suggests students are paying up to 75% of their stipends for a single room

https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/12/03/uc-strike-why-berkeley-student-workers-struggle-to-find-safe-and-affordable-homes/amp/

[lewelma]

11 minutes ago, rzberrymom said:

I believe MIT grad students were also fighting to increase their measly pay recently. 

Oh I agree. But it is not just public universities, private too.

But I will say they are not paying for their tuition like undergrads are. So their compensation is way way higher than the number they are quoting. My son gets $32k/9 months (and he can easily get a summer position) PLUS around $30K tuition waver, all for 15 to 20 hours per week. So in my eyes that is a VERY good wage. 

But his work hours are capped at 20 hours per week, maybe that is where it is different from other universities.

Edited December 6, 2022 by lewelma

[Not_a_Number]

Random thought: I have a relative who's a non-tenured researcher in the UC system, and he was talking about how salary increases like this are actually a problem for him. The reason is that almost all his salary comes from grants, and grants are matched to your salary, and it's harder to get larger grants 😕 . 

Things always have strange ramifications, don't they? 

[Wheres Toto]

It does seem like the bigger problem may be how many hours they are expected to work.   The university system is saying it's a part time job, the students seem to be saying it's a full time job since it doesn't give them time to do any other work.   

[Farrar]

As I understand it, the housing insecurity and the number of hours they're expected to work are the biggest issues. There have been prominent TA strikes all of the place this year. New School faculty are still on strike. All the students left and it's unclear when it'll be resolved. My kid's school had the TA's go on strike. They successfully won higher compensation that I thought was well-deserved.

Edited December 6, 2022 by Farrar

[Eos]

Dahlhousie grad student/workers also struck last month.

[Bootsie]

So where would the money come from to pay these higher wages?  Increased tuition?  Increased state taxes?  Neither of those seem like a popular solution.  

[rzberrymom]

2 hours ago, Bootsie said:

So where would the money come from to pay these higher wages?  Increased tuition?  Increased state taxes?  Neither of those seem like a popular solution.  

It would have been nice if more money could have gone to higher education when California had a nearly $100 billion surplus recently. But, I don’t really understand why our public universities continue to be so horribly underfunded here. (and now we’re back to a deficit) 

[Sneezyone]

On 12/6/2022 at 2:25 PM, rzberrymom said:

It would have been nice if more money could have gone to higher education when California had a nearly $100 billion surplus recently. But, I don’t really understand why our public universities continue to be so horribly underfunded here. (and now we’re back to a deficit) 

I think that's somewhat relative. Your in-state tuition is significantly lower than anything we have access to in VA. In-state in VA is the equivalent of out of state in NC (less, really because merit aid is available). CA's investment in higher ed, whatever it's strains/challenges is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than most other states.

[Sneezyone]

On 12/6/2022 at 2:25 PM, rzberrymom said:

It would have been nice if more money could have gone to higher education when California had a nearly $100 billion surplus recently. But, I don’t really understand why our public universities continue to be so horribly underfunded here. (and now we’re back to a deficit) 

I think that's somewhat relative. Your in-state tuition is significantly lower than anything we have access to in VA. In-state in VA is the equivalent of out of state in NC (less, really because merit aid is available). CA's investment in higher ed, whatever it's strains/challenges is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than most other states.

 

On 12/6/2022 at 11:50 AM, Bootsie said:

So where would the money come from to pay these higher wages?  Increased tuition?  Increased state taxes?  Neither of those seem like a popular solution.  

Endowments, for starters. Is there a UC with an endowment under $1B?

Edited December 8, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Bootsie]

8 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Endowments, for starters. Is there a UC with an endowment under $1B?

So, would you advocate for spending down the principal in the endowments?  Another difficult for many universities in recent years is that interest rates have been so low and stock market returns low, that the income that can be generated by a conservatively invested endowment has been much lower than what people became used to in the 80s and 90s.  

[rzberrymom]

2 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

Endowments, for starters. Is there a UC with an endowment under $1B?

I’m not really sure that’s the magic bullet for California. The UCs have an endowment of $10,147 per student. University of Virginia has more than 5 times that per student ($57,958). (Quick check on Wikipedia)

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, rzberrymom said:

I’m not really sure that’s the magic bullet for California. The UCs have an endowment of $10,147 per student. University of Virginia has more than 5 times that per student ($57,958). (Quick check on Wikipedia)

Every student isn’t going to need locality housing pay since only a small fraction are graduate student employees. I’m not suggesting UVA is a good model for public higher ed. either. The question was what could CA public Us do. That’s one option.

4 hours ago, Bootsie said:

So, would you advocate for spending down the principal in the endowments?  Another difficult for many universities in recent years is that interest rates have been so low and stock market returns low, that the income that can be generated by a conservatively invested endowment has been much lower than what people became used to in the 80s and 90s.  

If need be, yes, no different from a savings account. Spend it down in lean times and replenish when times are great. It’s a reserve not an unmovable, untouchable mountain of cash.

[Bootsie]

30 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

If need be, yes, no different from a savings account. Spend it down in lean times and replenish when times are great. It’s a reserve not an unmovable, untouchable mountain of cash.

Endowments are generally very different form savings accounts.  I do not know the specifics of the endowments for these schools but often these endowments have restrictions regarding how much of the principal can be spent.   The endowment is intended to generate a stream of income to fund expenses.  

Even if there is a reserves, or savings, fund what is the indication that times are lean right now (and it is a time to spend down) and what will be different in the future that will make times great for which the fund can be replinished?  This sounds more like a long-term problem that occurs in a placee with a high cost of living, which isn't expected to change any time in the future.

[Sneezyone]

9 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Endowments are generally very different form savings accounts.  I do not know the specifics of the endowments for these schools but often these endowments have restrictions regarding how much of the principal can be spent.   The endowment is intended to generate a stream of income to fund expenses.  

Even if there is a reserves, or savings, fund what is the indication that times are lean right now (and it is a time to spend down) and what will be different in the future that will make times great for which the fund can be replinished?  This sounds more like a long-term problem that occurs in a placee with a high cost of living, which isn't expected to change any time in the future.

Some endowment money is restricted, some is not. I happen to think sitting on billions in endowment money when it could potentially be used to pay the necessary expenses of graduate employees is wrong. It’s a valid operational expense/possible option. YMMV. I’ll leave it to the policy wonks to work out the particulars.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Sneezyone

[Bootsie]

12 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

Some endowment money is restricted, some is not. I happen to think sitting on billions in endowment money when it could potentially be used to pay the necessary expenses of graduate employees is wrong. It’s a valid operational expense/possible option. YMMV. I’ll leave it to the policy wonks to work out the particulars.

I think that California falls under the Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act which requires the maintenance of principal.  This legally restricts the spending of endowment money.

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

I think that California falls under the Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act which requires the maintenance of principal.  This legally restricts the spending of endowment money.

That may well be true.  I don’t know.

Brainstorming doesn't always lead to an effective, immediate, best, or easy solution. The goal is to generate ideas and possibilities.
 

If legislation or precedent or anything else is an obstacle to otherwise reasonable alternatives, they too, can be addressed/removed as barriers. They’re not set in stone. There are processes in place that simply require sufficient will to apply.

The tendency, however, is to reflexively foreclose options, prematurely IMO, before they’ve been fully interrogated/gamed out. My personal opinion is that’s a mistake.

The status quo is not immutable.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Sneezyone

[idnib]

On 12/5/2022 at 12:42 PM, Arcadia said:

 

I have no idea how much Ximena Anleu Gil earns but link shows the pay scale for UCD’s graduate student researchers 

https://grad.ucdavis.edu/understanding-your-student-salary
“

2021-2022 Salary Scale Summary

Employee Title	Title Code	Annual	Monthly	Hourly  (Single/Group)
Associate In (9 mo.)	1506	$48,711 -$57,743	$5,412.33 - $6,415.89	N/A
Associate In (11 mo.)	1511	$54,150 -$66,279	$4,512.50 - $5,523.00	N/A
Graduate Reader	2850			$17.78
Undergraduate Reader	2851			$16.90
Remedial Tutor I	2288			$17.78 / $23.92
Remedial Tutor II	2289			$21.38 / $27.51
Teaching Assistant	2310	$46,493.00	$5,165.89	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step I	3282	$44,011.00	$3,667.58	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step II	3282	$47,435.00	$3,952.92	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step III	3282	$52,604.00	$4,383.67	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step IV	3282	$56,818.00	$4,734.83	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step V	3282	$60,599.00	$5,049.92	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step VI	3282	$63,412.00	$5,284.33	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step VII	3282	$68,492.00	$5,707.67	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step VIII	3282	$73,941.00	$6,161.75	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step IX	3282	$79,873.00	$6,656.08	N/A
Graduate Student Researcher - Step X	3282	$86,239.00	$7,186.58	N

As an undergrad, I was paid $16 per hour working as a UC remedial tutor in ~1990.

Edited December 11, 2022 by idnib
I can't seem to leave the table out of my quote.

[Arcadia]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-16/after-strike-uc-grad-students-tentative-agreement
“

In a major breakthrough in the five-week strike that shut down classes and unleashed grading turmoil, the University of California and the union leadership representing 36,000 graduate student workers reached a tentative labor agreement Friday that would boost their pay and improve benefits.

If approved by members, the agreement will resolve what had been the nation’s largest-ever strike of academic workers — 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars across the UC system’s 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. All sides hailed the agreement as a historic step that will potentially transform graduate student education and working conditions nationally. 

The tentative agreement would give graduate student workers in two United Auto Workers bargaining units an increase in minimum pay from about $23,250 to about $34,000 for nine months of part-time work. The unions had demanded doubling their pay to $54,000 for 12 months — but union leadership agreed to take the offer to their members for ratification. 

Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 2865, which represents 19,000 teaching assistants, tutors and other graduate student instructors, said the ratification vote would take place from next Monday through Friday. His members, along with 17,000 graduate student researchers in the recently formed SRU-UAW, will remain on strike until and unless they ratify the agreement. He said he is “proudly” recommending ratification. 

Jaime said that union members did not win everything they demanded but that the agreement would give the lowest-paid researchers an 80% pay boost over the life of the contract, which would be effective until May 31, 2025. He said those wage gains, which could amount to more than $13,000 annually at some campuses, will help alleviate the staggering rent burdens faced by many graduate students — many of whom shell out half their pay or more for housing. 

The agreement also offers enhanced support for child care and healthcare for dependents. In addition, UC agreed to cover supplemental tuition for up to three years for eligible international students.

…
Earlier, UAW 5810, which represents postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers, ratified a new contract that boosted their minimum pay to $70,000 with adjustments, among the highest in the nation. The new contract also offers increased support for child care and healthcare for dependents, along with transit subsidies and protection against harassment and bullying — provisions also offered to graduate student workers.”