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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

#291

Post by valid4life »

daguava wrote: post #263
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…

Wow, your university treated their staff like shit and you're mad that the associated materials are gone. Open up your brain a bit.

I don't think it is that simple. Associated materials that I am paying for? Additionally, as another commenter mentioned there is an administration aspect no doubt about how crazy it is TAs even have this power in the first place.

_Mad_ is not the word I'd use in this situation. Ive been here long enough to just roll with the punches through every strike. I am just trying to talk about it, but it seems its easy to assume how others are acting.

The aggressive rhetoric this topic brings out like "open up your brain a bit" really is helping no one, including the strike and its cause.

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

#292

Post by asdff »

late2part wrote: post #240
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…

This is not regional in scope. UCSC is part of UC. If the wall breaks here; wages go up everywhere else. UC had to break the union before they got everyone involved. Your calculus disregards the additional carry-on costs for parity when the 9 other UC campuses follow suit.

Parity to the existing is what UCSC grad students want. This $1400 per month isn't arbitrary, it would bring minimum net compensation in line with what an arbitrary grad student at UC Riverside receives in net compensation.

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

#293

Post by dehrmann »

freyir wrote: post #46

UC president Janet Napolitano was caught on a hot mic a few years back saying, “We don’t have to listen to this crap”, when grad students protested for living wages. Sounds like not much has changed. Of course, she lives for free in the UC presidential mansion, and had the school spend $620,000 to renovate it before she moved in, so she’s all set.

> she lives for free in the UC presidential mansion

That's probably a fringe benefit, so at least she's taxed on its value.

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

#294

Post by voxl »

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…

As a grad student myself, lets just say that many graduate students and faculty are suggesting that grad students never apply to your school.

I wouldn't call that very detrimental to there cause.

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

#295

Post by hervature »

tnecniv wrote: post #245
hervature wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

> However, all TA positions are deemed 20 hours of work. So you can't even work at the campus gym if you want. This is not true at Princeton. Unless they are without funding, PhD students there commonly only work 10 hours per week (nominally) as TAs. The regular stipend is also generous compared to many other programs.

From the same link:

"This means that international students on a full AI or full AR appointment are not eligible for additional on-campus work, even if the Graduate School employment policy would otherwise allow it."

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

#296

Post by cardiffspaceman »

scarmig wrote: post #91
james-skemp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

At the legal level, unions are obligated to prevent wildcat strikes. That's why people talk about a grand bargain between labor and capital happening mid century: unions would channel labor conflict into a bureaucratic process, and in return capital would agree in principle to negotiate with the union. In practice, union bureaucrats really dislike wildcat strikes. They dissipate the negotiating power of the union; th…

I wonder if the union seriously considered a strike or not. I read the article but I missed anything that indicated deliberation over the striker's cause on the part of the union. In the grand bargain the union has to refrain from merging with management or else it is illegitimate.

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

#297

Post by asdff »

datashow wrote: post #272
lovich wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize that "common" was a synonym for "good" or "desirable"

There is a reason for this common practice. Do researchers pay office spaces, internet, electricity, utilities, etc...? No. So there is overhead.

Expected that there is some overhead to keep lights on, sure. But should lab A who brought in a 1 million dollar grant pay 500k in overhead for internet and electricity while lab B in the next bay in the same room brought in a 50k grant and only needs to pay 25k? Overhead is baked into salary budgeting too, you might budget 60k for your technician in your grant, knowing they'd receive 40k, the 20k allegedly covering the employees various benefits (which said employee will find are withheld from their 40k paychecks anyway).

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

#298

Post by refurb »

saagarjha wrote: post #282
refurb wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These graduate students are TAing labs. It's nowhere near a full time job.

You often end up doing 30-40 hours of work, but are only paid for 20.

I guess experiences vary. It was definitely a part time job when I did it.

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

#299

Post by asdff »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #251
michaericalribo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t speak to GP’s situation, but TFA makes clear that the university grad student housing available at UCSC in this specific real-world case is in fact not sufficient for the graduate students to afford such a living situation on their stipends.

Then live off-campus? Or live in a 3 or 4 bedroom unit on-campus?

And what do you know, the rents are still high. At what point do we realize that an administrator making 600k a year off the backs of people toiling long hours in labs to bring in grant money for the school and coming home to live in tenement conditions isn't the fault of the students, but the administrators making half a million dollars a year? Quite a hill to die on.

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

#300

Post by scarmig »

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #296
scarmig wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the legal level, unions are obligated to prevent wildcat strikes. That's why people talk about a grand bargain between labor and capital happening mid century: unions would channel labor conflict into a bureaucratic process, and in return capital would agree in principle to negotiate with the union. In practice, union bureaucrats really dislike wildcat strikes. They dissipate the negotiating power of the union; th…

I wonder if the union seriously considered a strike or not. I read the article but I missed anything that indicated deliberation over the striker's cause on the part of the union. In the grand bargain the union has to refrain from merging with management or else it is illegitimate.

Probably not, because the strikers obviously had no leverage. The union officials knew exactly how this would go down, and they accurately believed that more subtle means of pressure would allow the workers to maximize their benefit.
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