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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

#311

Post by asdff »

School-Cotton wrote: post #181
jostmey wrote: post #177

More grad students should refuse to turn in grades. After all, it is the grad students doing the grading and work. What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? You find a job that pays the same but requires fewer hours of work?

The worst thing that’s going to happen is you’re fired and (unless you have some other source of income) forced to leave your PhD program, permanently ending your hopes of an academic career. Not sure how you can reasonably downplay that...

Not to mention, having to move because there are no jobs in Santa Cruz and no apartments you can afford without said job, and having to make this move happen to some unknown place that might have a job with your zero dollars saved up from your TA job. Homelessness for a spell is a real possibility.

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

#314

Post by roel_v »

hervature wrote: post #86
chrisseaton wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ex…

You're talking about having a side job while doing a PhD. GP is talking about (as I understand it - not to put words in their mouth) having a job that will let you take some of the work you do there and turn it into a PhD. Which, admittedly, is not a very well-known or advertised route, but one that is a much better deal than the 'take internship-level pay for years for the privilege of being exploited or ignored'.

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

#315

Post by overeater »

asdff wrote: post #289
baryphonic wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem from the university's perspective is that while $13M is a low-ish amount of money (by university standards), the university has no reason to believe it would "put the problem to bed." If the university backs down, the strikers will be able to dictate any terms they want in the future, and any such strikes (i.e. illegal ones) would certainly have many more participants. The disruption to university operati…

Grad students at UCSC didn't arbitrarily think the deal they struck isn't good enough anymore, they never thought it was good enough in the first place. 83% of UCSC grad students felt the minimums outlined in the agreement, which was a UC wide agreement and not between UCSC and the UCSC grad students by the way, were insufficient for the growing rents in Santa Cruz. This 13m number isn't arbitrary. In fact that $1400…

Weren't they the ones who had to vote in the union in the first place? Seems like they should have figured out what they want from the union before giving it the power to negotiate a contract on their behalf.

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

#316

Post by ajross »

epistasis wrote: post #267
refurb wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? They asked their union to represent them along with the other UCSC union members (they are a small part of the members). The union did so, and they are held to that contract.

If somebody bargains on your behalf, and you have no way to reject what they bargained for, can you really say that they acted in your behalf at all?

This is missing the point of what collective bargaining is about. The whole idea is that you give up some autonomy over your situation so that you and all your compatriots can negotiate in unison for a deal that is better, in aggregate, than what you all could do individually. No, it's not always perfectly fair, but it does work.

Tearing that deal up like this is effectively throwing all the other members of the union under the bus, because now UC has reason not to trust the union can keep its bargains.

If you want to support organized labor you can't be selfish. It just doesn't work.

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

#317

Post by jogjayr »

caf wrote: post #107
asdff wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like that. If you want to be hired as a staff scientist, you need a PhD. If you have an MS you can't be a staff scientist. If you have a BS you can't be a staff scientist. The most you'd get with those degrees is Research Assistant or Technician, then you will hit a ceiling in your career unless you step away from research and step more into business. This is true in academia, government labs, and the privat…

It's like if you want to be a General, you are going to have to be a Private first. There is a progression in the sciences. That's not how the military works at all. A Private is an enlisted rank, and their career path typically tops out at a level like Warrant Officer. If you want to be a General, you're going to have to start as a Lieutenant (the lowest commissioned officer).

I think they got their analogy slightly wrong but it makes sense. If you want a career in research, a Bachelor's or Master's degree is like enlisting. You won't progress beyond a certain level. Whereas going to grad school for a PhD is like attending a military academy - which is the only path to becoming a general today. A military academy has the added benefit of a guaranteed officer job upon graduation. No such guarantees exist for a PhD.

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

#318

Post by kaikai »

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.

There is a no-strike clause in their contract, so they couldn’t have had an official strike.

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

#319

Post by toomim »

asdff wrote: post #289
baryphonic wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem from the university's perspective is that while $13M is a low-ish amount of money (by university standards), the university has no reason to believe it would "put the problem to bed." If the university backs down, the strikers will be able to dictate any terms they want in the future, and any such strikes (i.e. illegal ones) would certainly have many more participants. The disruption to university operati…

Grad students at UCSC didn't arbitrarily think the deal they struck isn't good enough anymore, they never thought it was good enough in the first place. 83% of UCSC grad students felt the minimums outlined in the agreement, which was a UC wide agreement and not between UCSC and the UCSC grad students by the way, were insufficient for the growing rents in Santa Cruz. This 13m number isn't arbitrary. In fact that $1400…

But at UCSC they do this every year.

Here's news on the strike from 2018: https://news.ucsc.edu/2018/05/strike-updates.html

Here's news on the strike from 2017: https://news.ucsc.edu/2017/01/strike-message.html

There's reason to believe that no matter what deal was reached, they would just strike again next year, to try to get more money. How much is enough?

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

#320

Post by curryslapper »

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…

All graduate students are teaching?
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