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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

#131

Post by detaro »

papeda wrote: post #108

There are about 1800 UCSC graduate students [1]. From this 2014-15 UCSC budget report [2] there is a very near 2:1 masters:phd graduation ratio. Assuming there are 2 years of masters students and 6 of PhD at any one time, that makes PhD students 60% of “graduate students”. Let’s make this easy by saying 1000 PhD students (if anything I imagine it’s way less than this — as I understand, monetizing masters students has…

It probably also has by now spent quite a bit of money on managing this strike (security/campus police (some sources say $300k/day), lawyers, PR, ...)

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

#132

Post by asdff »

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…

Grad students do hold a lot of the cards here. They are frequently required to teach and grade classes, and they perform research critical to their advisors career and the future success of the department. Schools stand to loose training grants as well if research output is diminished, and would fail to recruit grad students who are of high caliber and have choices to go to other schools, so the quality of research would further go down.

It's not a tenable position for the school to be in long term, and they are hoping they can scare other students back into line if they start axing students. If anything, this has fired up the students, not made them accept the status quo of loosing money for every year they live and work at UCSC.

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

#133

Post by valid4life »

detaro wrote: post #127
valid4life wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that striking when its convenient is worthless, but at the same time, I have various emails from my direct TAs and the COLA organization as a whole mentioning the intent is to not harm undergrads, but here we are... Additionally, I'm not sure where youre getting the students are "entitled". I work and take loans out in order to go to this school, takes classes, and receive my grades. Am I entitled for wanting…

> The administration is not withholding grades It clearly has the resources to provide you with your grades, it's not like the specific grad students are the only ones being able to grade random undergrad work. It appears it's failing to provide the service you pay it for.

You're absolutely right in that they have the resources to get these graded. Another comment I posted down below describes my grade situation and how I've been asked to help grade (for pay). I imagine in six months time I'll have my grades, but the wait is absolutely wrong. Other students are attempting to graduate, but their requirements are not met because of withheld grades by their TAs. Can they afford another quarter or two while the UC gathers new graders? Who knows.

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

#134

Post by allovernow »

csb6 wrote: post #64
csomar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'…

The vast majority of people in the "labor market" are making livable wages. This is not the "unjust system" that a minority at the bottom are complaining about. In any case this "exploitation" is temporary for these student teachers and most importantly as others have pointed out, most of these students are foreign workers and personally I think it's a little exploitive for them to demand entitlements while harming the school to get their way - if it really is so bad no one is forcing them to study here.

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

#135

Post by gyrgtyn »

valid4life wrote: post #83

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…

You paid a bunch of money, then the school provided you with instructors that have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from.

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

#136

Post by gyrgtyn »

papeda wrote: post #108

There are about 1800 UCSC graduate students [1]. From this 2014-15 UCSC budget report [2] there is a very near 2:1 masters:phd graduation ratio. Assuming there are 2 years of masters students and 6 of PhD at any one time, that makes PhD students 60% of “graduate students”. Let’s make this easy by saying 1000 PhD students (if anything I imagine it’s way less than this — as I understand, monetizing masters students has…

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2017/10/26/all...

The $500K Club: Here are the hundreds of U.C. employees who made more than $500,000 last year

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

#137

Post by asdff »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #93
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…

>Also I am sure the janitor at the University is paid decently and loves to work there. Reason is there are not as many people lined up for that job and basic economics takes over. Janitor and other unskilled labor jobs at public universities tend to pay crap but are highly sought after because they usually come with the union negotiated benefits package that makes them a better value (than local work in private indu…

Another huge benefit is some schools offer reduced or free tuition to your children.

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

#138

Post by thanatosmin »

valid4life wrote: post #114
anonsivalley652 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Striking when it's convenient is worthless. Perhaps if the students weren't so entitled, they'd understand that solidarity is important and that grades should be handled. Furthermore, you have to realize the university is punishing you to turn you against the grad students... and it appears they have succeeded. If I were an ugrad there, I'd be right there with the grad students. I was an ugrad at another UC where 2/3…

I agree that striking when its convenient is worthless, but at the same time, I have various emails from my direct TAs and the COLA organization as a whole mentioning the intent is to not harm undergrads, but here we are... Additionally, I'm not sure where youre getting the students are "entitled". I work and take loans out in order to go to this school, takes classes, and receive my grades. Am I entitled for wanting…

This situation is also a consequence of poor management at UCSC. Every other university I'm familiar with makes faculty responsible for submitting grades. It's inconceivable to me, as someone in the UC system, why TAs would be responsible for grades. TAs should be teaching assistants, not adjunct faculty.

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

#139

Post by allovernow »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #96
csomar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> You get paid by market rate; I love how people dismiss injustice with an appeal to "the market" as if the market was a force of nature rather than a manmade and human manipulated entity. Markets are created by a handful of people and affected by laws. And supply and demand is also an man-made creation. For example, by creating laws allowing seasonal migrants, you could affect the wages of farm workers. The same thi…

>than a manmade and human manipulated entity.

The market is an emergency force. It isn't determined by a secret cabal of evil capitalists. It may not be a "force of nature" (although that is debatable because it is a direct consequence of natural properties like scarcity), but that doesn't mean it can be simply up and changed.

>Markets are created by a handful of people and affected by laws

I bake a bunch of bread. You grow a bunch of potatoes. We are both willing to trade. That's a market. All people participate in the market if they consume goods and/or offer labor.

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

#140

Post by lobotryas »

anonsivalley652 wrote: post #105
valid4life wrote: post #83

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…

Striking when it's convenient is worthless. Perhaps if the students weren't so entitled, they'd understand that solidarity is important and that grades should be handled. Furthermore, you have to realize the university is punishing you to turn you against the grad students... and it appears they have succeeded. If I were an ugrad there, I'd be right there with the grad students. I was an ugrad at another UC where 2/3…

Is it Ok to strike when that will hurt innocents? I think we can all agree that having nurses strike and abandon care of their patients is unfair to those patients. This fight should be between UCSC and the graduates, not holding innocent undergrads hostage in the middle.
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