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UC Santa Cruz fires 54 graduate student workers striking for higher pay
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Mark Frost
Mar 1, 2020, 1:35:28 AM3/1/20
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UC Santa Cruz fired 54 graduate student workers who were on strike
demanding higher pay to afford the area’s high cost of living.
As part of a “wildcat strike,” about 200 teaching assistants decided in
December to withhold fall quarter grades after months of back and forth
with campus administrators. They demanded an increase in pay of $1,412 a
month. The strike is not backed by the union that represents the
university’s graduate student employees.
Tension between student workers, the campus and University of California
administrators heightened dramatically in recent weeks as talks
floundered. Students escalated the grade strike in early February to a
full work stoppage, declining to teach, hold office hours, conduct
research or post grades. Seventeen students were arrested at a campus
protest Feb. 12, and UC Santa Cruz and the UC president published a series
of letters online over the last month warning student workers they would
be disciplined if they failed to submit grades.
On Monday, UC Santa Cruz told teaching assistants it would check for the
withheld grades later in the week. The campus sent letters of intent to
dismiss Friday around noon to 54 students. An estimated 30 other students
who had yet to secure spring teaching jobs were told they would not be
eligible for the positions, student activists said.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-28/uc-santa-cruz-fires-54-
graduate-student-workers-wildcat-strike
demanding higher pay to afford the area’s high cost of living.
As part of a “wildcat strike,” about 200 teaching assistants decided in
December to withhold fall quarter grades after months of back and forth
with campus administrators. They demanded an increase in pay of $1,412 a
month. The strike is not backed by the union that represents the
university’s graduate student employees.
Tension between student workers, the campus and University of California
administrators heightened dramatically in recent weeks as talks
floundered. Students escalated the grade strike in early February to a
full work stoppage, declining to teach, hold office hours, conduct
research or post grades. Seventeen students were arrested at a campus
protest Feb. 12, and UC Santa Cruz and the UC president published a series
of letters online over the last month warning student workers they would
be disciplined if they failed to submit grades.
On Monday, UC Santa Cruz told teaching assistants it would check for the
withheld grades later in the week. The campus sent letters of intent to
dismiss Friday around noon to 54 students. An estimated 30 other students
who had yet to secure spring teaching jobs were told they would not be
eligible for the positions, student activists said.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-28/uc-santa-cruz-fires-54-
graduate-student-workers-wildcat-strike
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