UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay

Post by chrisseaton » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

gist wrote: post #9

daly wrote: post #2

I lived on 54 cent pancakes covered in free butter and honey, 9 cents per can baked beans (turns out I don't like baked beans, I like good sauce which this was not), and candy bars out of a broken and never fixed candy machine. I don't recommend it. I weighed 110 pounds by the time I left. All of my money went to dorm housing (paid to the school). Later when I was a researcher I found out that the Provost takes 55% o…

Why do you (and others) think that education and academia is somehow special and not the same as, say, acting (or any career) where people regularly earn no money and work bad 2nd jobs just to survive and do something they love or want as a career? In a free market system nobody is telling you to choose that career and a University and (typically) a non-profit doesn't have any particular incentive to not act in their…

Post by hedora » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #10

hedora wrote: post #8

Hopefully the strike will now spread to other UC campuses. The back story here is that United Auto Workers (the UC grad students’ union) negotiated an unacceptable contract, and despite many months of pushback from the students, and despite UCSC voting against it, the union ratified it anyway (including a no-strike clause). Also, the faculty of UCSC voted against the firings.

> United Auto Workers (the UC grad students’ union) Why are they represented by such a completely unrelated union?

Post by thebean11 » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #11

gist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you (and others) think that education and academia is somehow special and not the same as, say, acting (or any career) where people regularly earn no money and work bad 2nd jobs just to survive and do something they love or want as a career? In a free market system nobody is telling you to choose that career and a University and (typically) a non-profit doesn't have any particular incentive to not act in their…

Society needs researchers - it doesn’t need actors.

Post by singlow » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #14

hedora wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no clear path to replacing UAW. They somehow got in control of union representation for the entire UC system. The US is a closed shop country, so it is illegal for students to simply cancel their membership in UAW and join a graduate student workers union. I’m not familiar enough with labor law to know the exact proceedue, but presumably students would need to mount a state-wide campaign to vote UAW out (if i…

Wow being a graduate student is closed-shop in the US?! That’s crazy I never knew that. How does that square with academic and political freedom? A student who researches union abuse must join and fund a union!

Post by nico_h » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #16

thebean11 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty simplistic view of society. Do we need not need novels or music either? Let's drink nothing but soylent and devote 80 hours per week to our STEM careers

People literally die without research into things like drugs. They don’t die without movies.