UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by lisper » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

gyrgtyn wrote: post #136

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

They all seem to be medical doctors.

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

#192

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

valid4life wrote: post #115

awinder wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened with your grades in those classes? I read the university systems release and this article and couldn’t glean the details. Is that course’s grades still just up in the air?

For many classes, grades were withheld and then released as the TAs did not want to lose their jobs. My TA was not one of them. For a class that needs tests graded, this isn't as much of an issue, but in my case, the class is a Distributed Systems course and the projects we built are quite extensive. My professor reached out to me and other high scorers in the course requesting us to recreate the grading infrastructu…

> My professor reached out to me and other high scorers in the course requesting us to recreate the grading infrastructure as he believes our true grades will never be received from our fired TA.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's asking you to work on grading infrastructure?

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

#193

Post by oh_sigh » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #180

oh_sigh wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could just as easily say these students went on strike because they are ideologues who were brainwashed by delusions of importance.

Brainwashed by the fact that there isn't money in their account to pay their landlord?

Yet 750+ others in similar circumstances don't feel that way. I wonder if these 54 who striked were the poorest of the 800+ grad students?

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

#194

Post by gyrgtyn » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:12 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #191

gyrgtyn wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They all seem to be medical doctors.

I think it doesn't include administrative type people? The chancellor makes about that much

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

#195

Post by School-Cotton » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #171

Is that even legal?

Yes, it’s (obviously) legal to fire people who arbitrarily refuse to do the job they signed up for. How could society possibly function otherwise?

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

#196

Post by wutbrodo » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

skrtskrt wrote: post #45

rdtsc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only kids from wealthy families can afford to move to say DC or NY and spend a year there on an unpaid internship. So that becomes a selection criteria to exclude those from poor and middle classes from advancing in those domains.

The same is true for entry-level media jobs. Paying $40-$50k in NYC... you can be sure kids without generational wealth & parents financial assistance choose other paths.

This is definitely untrue. There are plenty of young people willing to save roughly no money for the early years of their 20s by trying to make it in the big city in a flashy career. I know several who don't get any financial support from their parents (and certainly don't have generational wealth). The most you can say is that people who have parents that _require_ financial support aren't able to take this path, but that's a significantly smaller group.

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

#197

Post by CameronNemo » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:15 AM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #170

pergadad wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even worse the UC system (and by extension UCSC) are state run institutions that get a hefty chunk of their operating budget from the state. They also prioritize foreign students over domestic as they pay higher tuition (nee fees as it was illegal in California for UC and CSU schools to charge tuition for a very long time). The state should not be in the business of exploiting cheap labor. Period. It's fucking absurd…

There are strikes at UCSD and UCSB.

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

#198

Post by detaro » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:15 AM UTC

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?

The article clearly states that more than 54 students striked.

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

#199

Post by lisper » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:15 AM UTC

gyrgtyn wrote: post #194

lisper wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all seem to be medical doctors.

I think it doesn't include administrative type people? The chancellor makes about that much

It does include them. I saw the chief investment officer mixed in amongst the MDs.

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

#200

Post by cycrutchfield » Mon, Mar 02, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

gyrgtyn wrote: post #175

cycrutchfield wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hyperbole is not really helpful for this discussion.

“I’m struggling for basic needs such as toilet paper, buying my son milk,” said Arjona, who pays about $1,700 a month in rent out of the $2,200 she receives

A cursory examination of Craigslist shows that you can easily rent a nice 4 bedroom house for $4000/month in Santa Cruz. Get a couple of roommates to split the rent and you're only paying $1000/month.

Perhaps Arjona should consider that she could have more money for living expenses if she was more economical with her housing choices. After all, she was the one who chose to sign a lease for $1700/month on a $2200/month salary, when cheaper options exist.