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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

#81

Post by throwqwerty »

nostrebored wrote: post #71
acdha wrote: post #12

I feel like these stories should mention the compensation for the people attacking graduate students for demanding a living wage. Someone making well into 6 figures really doesn’t have a good basis for summarily dismissing that need: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2018/university-o...

Why should they expect a living wage for sub-demand fields of research? Why do my choices to achieve financial stability override my experience prior to that? When you're from a poor family the decisions that these striking students are making are befuddling.

because they perform a service. they teach classes. that's literally what they were withholding - grades for classes they TA. so there is plenty of demand for that service. it has nothing to do with the labor market after they graduate. god some people just fall all over themselves to be smug.

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

#82

Post by james-skemp »

beetwenty wrote: post #74
zdragnar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

A representative for the union that represents more than 19,000 academic workers across the University of California system said she was surprised by the university's decision. "We are shocked by UC's callousness, and by the violence that so many protesters experienced as they peacefully made the case for a cost of living increase," said Kavitha Iyengar, president of UAW Local 2865, in a statement. "Instead of firing…

I thought the same thing as they. From the article:

"The strike, which is not authorized by the union that represents the graduate student employees, is in violation of the current bargaining agreement, the university said."

It's not clear that the union authorized it, despite what they're quoted as saying further down the article.

I don't know enough about unions to know whether they could authorize a strike after not explicitly authorizing initially.

It reads like the union didn't authorize the strike, but was fine seeing what would happen/causing a reaction.

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

#83

Post by valid4life »

I'm an undergrad at UCSC right now and have found the entire strike to be more detrimental to their cause. They've lost so much undergrad support after disrupting a STEM midterm and shutting down campus causing us to miss the classes we have paid for. I even lost my grades last quarter as my TA was fired ( of the 54 ) and he has refused to hand them over post firing. What it has done to the undergraduates is a little ridiculous and I felt for them in the beginning, but the strike has made me be a supporter against them unfortunately.

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

#84

Post by throwqwerty »

macinjosh wrote: post #76

Just because you exist does not mean you deserve success. This strain of leftism is essentially just jealousy and entitlement. I learned life isn't fair as a child it really isn't that hard of concept to grasp. That gave me the motivation to think about what I wanted out of life and to work towards that goal. I didn't get a loan from parents (they barely made ends meet growing up). I didn't go to college or a code ca…

I read a tweet on Reddit: if you think you made it through hard times okay but think it's okay for other people to go through the same hard times then you in fact did not make it through okay.

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

#85

Post by pvaldes »

> they refused to turn in final fall grades

Some students take a debt for having the opportunity of achieving a grade. If they study, learn, and pass, they should be allowed to participate in the yet narrow window of time of hiring that follows after the formative period. Flashing your grade can be necessary before just start talking with your potential employer. Any random delay could make they lose a year and create a damage in their finances, curricula and lifes.

They just put themselves in a impossible situation. Damaging the lifes of your students, maybe forever, is not how anybody should do a strike and directly disqualifies you as a teacher.

Is not much different when you are a scientist. Strike is a luxury that some sectors really can't afford.

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

#86

Post by hervature »

chrisseaton wrote: post #37
rumanator wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately a PhD is sold as a key step for a well-paying and fulfilling career where you can make a difference. As we live in a society where education is fundamental to success and having a good life, a PhD is considered as the last and most exclusive step in a promising career path. But then the disappointing part is that the system in place is designed to exploit newcomers and place them in an abuse relationshi…

But you don’t have to work for the university while you do your PhD if you don’t want to. I didn’t - I worked for a company instead. Maybe if the university had paid more I’d have worked for it instead.

PhD in Europe is different than in the US. There's is very little industry-academia support in terms of working while doing your PhD.

From Princeton's policies, particularly the last sentence:

"Graduate study at Princeton, at both the doctoral and, in most cases, the master’s level, requires full-time commitment to study and research on the part of students. The Graduate School’s financial support structure, which extends throughout the length of the student’s program and ordinarily includes summers, is one indication of that requirement. Accordingly, the Graduate School considers employment beyond full fellowship, teaching or research support or its equivalent to be incompatible with full-time graduate study."[0]

It's even worse for international students. Under F1 visa, you can't work more than 20 hours on campus. However, all TA positions are deemed 20 hours of work. So you can't even work at the campus gym if you want.

[0] - https://gradschool.princeton.edu/policies/employment

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

#87

Post by gjs278 »

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #29
pkaye wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In college, a professor recommended me for an academic award from industry. It was $1000. So I go to the yearly awards dinner and a month later got a check for $800. Apparently the university takes a 20% as administrative cost!

That's actually low! Most of the Universities we've explored research grants with wanted 45-65% overhead for the university, then another 10-15 for Research organization, with the remainder sorted between the researchers / company. We found it was actually just cheaper to pay for the research ourselves and hire the students directly for part time work than go through the grant process. I sat on a couple school boards…

it’s not actually low. you’re both just being scammed.

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

#88

Post by andrepd »

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…

There is a power asymmetry between the worker class and the capitalist class. By that Gilded Age logic, certainly all unqualified workers -- and many qualified ones as is this case -- do not have the right to strike.

It's because of that power asymmetry that there are utterly basic protections such as it being illegal to fire strikers, hire scabs, etc.

Your "free market" approach makes for a very dystopic world indeed.

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

#89

Post by csb6 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #73
csb6 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the rest of the article, you would see that the union is alleging that the UC administration was not willing to engage in negotiations to raise compensation for grad students, who were unable to afford their rent payments. It's no wonder a wildcat strike happened. Also, I am saddened by your comment about withholding grades being an unnecessary "burden". That's the point of a strike. What do you think a s…

Why was it just these 54 grad students that could t afford rent? How many grad students does the system have?

Indeed, 100% of the people affected by injustice will always go on strike. No external factors exist.

The likely reason only 54 went on strike is because most grad students were afraid for their jobs, which the university has shown to be well-founded.

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

#90

Post by andrepd »

nico_h wrote: post #19
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

there are a lot of anecdotes about how a song or a book or a movie changed someone's life.

As opposed to research changing someone's life.
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