Massive strike at University of California over low pay and poor benefits
Research at 10 campuses comes to a standstill as 48,000 academic workers walk off the job over what they deem unfair labour practices
Nearly 50,000 academic researchers, postdocs, graduate students and teaching assistants at all 10 campuses of the University of California, US, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are set to begin a massive strike today over what they deem unfair labour practices related to insufficient pay, rights and benefits.
‘We have been bargaining throughout the weekend, and while important progress has been made, we are still far apart on many of the issues that will make UC a more equitable university,’ said Rafael Jaime, a PhD student at UC, Los Angeles, and president of the United Autoworkers Union (UAW) 2865, which represents 19,000 student workers.
On the evening of 2 November, more than 75% of the 48,000 UC employees voted to strike after months of unsuccessful bargaining with UC, the largest employer in California. With $5.4 billion of funding, UC accounted for 8.6% of total research expenditures at all US universities in 2018/19. 10% of postdocs in the US work at one of the 10 UC campuses.
The strike will have ‘a humongous impact on the research progress in the state and at UC’, warns Lexie McIsaac, a UC Berkeley postdoc in computational chemistry.