Quick Take
More than 40,000 graduate student workers and staff across the University of California system voted to authorize a strike, accusing the university of committing multiple unfair labor practices and bargaining in bad faith as contract negotiations near a Feb. 28 expiration date.
The union representing more than 40,000 University of California graduate student workers and some staff voted Friday to authorize a strike and accused the university system of committing unfair labor practices.
Units within the United Auto Workers (UAW) union representing professional advisors and student services staff as well as graduate student workers say the university committed eight unfair labor practices at multiple UC campuses.
Rebecca Gross, UAW unit chair at UC Santa Cruz, said the union has been negotiating with the university for a new contract for seven months and accuses the university of bargaining in bad faith. Gross is the chair of the graduate student worker unit of UAW.
“It seems to us that there’s deliberate, slow-walking at the table,” she said. “They’re dragging out this process and leaving us in a position without being able to to get a fair, better contract.” The current contract expires Feb. 28.
She said the union hasn’t announced dates for the start of the strike. Before any strike can begin, both sides must participate in mediation for three days. The first two days of mediation are scheduled for Thursday and Friday, according to Gross.
UC officials said in a statement on Friday that they’re disappointed by the strike vote.
“Since July, UC has met consistently with UAW, exchanged proposals, and reached nearly two dozen tentative agreements for academic student employees and 20 tentative agreements for the student services and research professionals unit,” they wrote.
Gross said there are about 1,500 academic student employees at UCSC, and about 28,000 across the UC system. They include teaching assistants, graduate student researchers, fellows, readers and tutors who are mostly graduate workers, but there’s also some undergraduate workers. She said 93.45% of 23,314 graduate student voters across the UC campuses voted in favor of striking.
Gross said as part of the bargaining, the union is pushing for legal support for immigrant workers, higher wages and cost-of-living adjustment increases. Recently, she said the university offered 1% annual raises for three years, below the inflation rate, the union argues.
In addition to the graduate student worker unit, the other units who authorized a strike are newly unionized workers: the research and public service professionals unit (RPSP) and student services and advising professionals unit (SSAP). There are 5,000 student services and advising professionals and more than 7,000 research and public service professionals in the UC system.
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