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

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

#61

Post by csomar »

csb6 wrote: post #58
csomar wrote: post #49

I think this is a wake-up call for these grad students of how the real world works. > Instead of firing TAs who are standing up for a decent standard of living for themselves, UC must sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a cost of living increase. Sitting at the negotiations table where you hold none of the cards means you are not getting the pay increase you are asking for. Striking is for workers who know…

I also think it is a good introduction to the real world, but for a different reason: it shows that workers are treated as disposable goods that employers can and will throw away whenever they become too much of a hassle or ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization. Universities are no different to businesses in this respect; the success of colleges depends on the grunt work of grad…

> The way workers in this country are treated is god-awful, and I'm saddened by the people in this thread who are cheering the firing of these students.

I'm not cheering their firing. I'm just explaining why their strike did not work out as they wished.

> ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization

That's not how it works in the real world. You get paid by market rate; which means if there is someone else accepting a pay cut, you'll get fired and replaced.

> Universities are no different to businesses in this respect

Universities are a competitive business, too; and students pay high tuition fees. If the universities are out-competed, they can lose business/students. It's turtles all the way down.

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

#62

Post by jdm2212 »

csb6 wrote: post #58
csomar wrote: post #49

I think this is a wake-up call for these grad students of how the real world works. > Instead of firing TAs who are standing up for a decent standard of living for themselves, UC must sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a cost of living increase. Sitting at the negotiations table where you hold none of the cards means you are not getting the pay increase you are asking for. Striking is for workers who know…

I also think it is a good introduction to the real world, but for a different reason: it shows that workers are treated as disposable goods that employers can and will throw away whenever they become too much of a hassle or ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization. Universities are no different to businesses in this respect; the success of colleges depends on the grunt work of grad…

> Workers are treated as disposable

Workers are treated as replaceable when they are in fact easily replaced. Grad students aren't even really workers, though. They're students where teaching responsibilities are part of their professional training, and as with most similar positions (apprenticeships and internships), they aren't especially lucrative and there's a line around the block to replace anyone who quits.

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

#64

Post by csb6 »

csomar wrote: post #61
csb6 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think it is a good introduction to the real world, but for a different reason: it shows that workers are treated as disposable goods that employers can and will throw away whenever they become too much of a hassle or ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization. Universities are no different to businesses in this respect; the success of colleges depends on the grunt work of grad…

> The way workers in this country are treated is god-awful, and I'm saddened by the people in this thread who are cheering the firing of these students. I'm not cheering their firing. I'm just explaining why their strike did not work out as they wished. > ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization That's not how it works in the real world. You get paid by market rate; which means if t…

> That's not how it works in the real world. You get paid by market rate; which means if there is someone else accepting a pay cut, you'll get fired and replaced.

I agree, that's true. It's almost as if this is an unjust system that devolves into a race to the bottom and inevitable exploitation of workers. And that in the real world, anyone who tries to fight against this system ends up screwed by their employers.

I'm glad we could agree on the exploitation inherent to the labor market.

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

#65

Post by zdragnar »

csb6 wrote: post #58
csomar wrote: post #49

I think this is a wake-up call for these grad students of how the real world works. > Instead of firing TAs who are standing up for a decent standard of living for themselves, UC must sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a cost of living increase. Sitting at the negotiations table where you hold none of the cards means you are not getting the pay increase you are asking for. Striking is for workers who know…

I also think it is a good introduction to the real world, but for a different reason: it shows that workers are treated as disposable goods that employers can and will throw away whenever they become too much of a hassle or ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization. Universities are no different to businesses in this respect; the success of colleges depends on the grunt work of grad…

You're overlooking a few details:

These workers belonged to a union

The union did not endorse the strike

The strike occured during a period of operation under an agreed-upon contract

Re-opening the contract for negotiation would have lead to renegotiating for 90,000 other employees during a school year

The workers were withholding student grades, harming others who have taken out a significant bet against their own futures that they would get good grades and eventually jobs to repay that financial aid

There are a number of ways this could have played out, and was basically the second-to-worst case scenario. I am sympathetic to those working under an oppressive union and university, but there really wasn't going to be a different outcome given the path they took.

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

#66

Post by csb6 »

jdm2212 wrote: post #62
csb6 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think it is a good introduction to the real world, but for a different reason: it shows that workers are treated as disposable goods that employers can and will throw away whenever they become too much of a hassle or ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization. Universities are no different to businesses in this respect; the success of colleges depends on the grunt work of grad…

> Workers are treated as disposable Workers are treated as replaceable when they are in fact easily replaced. Grad students aren't even really workers, though. They're students where teaching responsibilities are part of their professional training, and as with most similar positions (apprenticeships and internships), they aren't especially lucrative and there's a line around the block to replace anyone who quits.

> Grad students aren't even really workers

"As part of its commitment to transparency and public accountability, each year the University of California publicly reports employee pay data. The report covers UC's career faculty and staff employees, as well as part-time, temporary and student employees." [1]

I think the commonly accepted definition of worker is someone who is an employee and not a manager. Grad students are pretty clearly employees, according to the UC system.

[1] https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/

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

#69

Post by tssva »

nico_h wrote: post #18
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…

First of all there is no such thing as a free market. Universities advertise good careers if you go through them, and I am not sure these numbers are as balanced as they could be. Second even if it were, there is a terrible imbalance of power between students, which are distributed actors with little to no individual power and little information or experience, vs a much bigger actor with more information and a lot of…

The graduate students had union protection. They chose to disregard the contract the union had negotiated and membership had ratified in 2018 thus throwing away that union protection.

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

#70

Post by nostrebored »

pergadad wrote: post #40
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…

In the Netherlands every PhD will be paid fairly decently. That's how it should be. Nor excuse for rich universities like those in UK & US to exploit those dreaming of s research career.

Maybe the number of anthropology researchers we deem appropriate as a society is actually not that high.

Maybe if these people want to do anthropology research, they can, but at their own expense.

When I was looking into doing grad school, I had no illusions that if I went in without a grant that I'd be doing anything other than scraping by. I have no idea why anyone would expect anything else.

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