In the Chemistry Department.
I make about 37,038,000.
I get paid for 20 hours of work a week.
But really they're all full time employees here.
I don't have a second job.
I'm not allowed to have a Second job.
So my appointment is for 20 hours a week.
I make three tax about $40,000 a year.
But in reality I'm usually working 40 Usually more hours per week right?
Because there's so much that needs to be done.
What it means is that I'm rent burden just like you know pretty much all of my
colleagues out here right now.
That means we're paying more than 30% of our wages for
its rent and utilities each month.
And the tension's pretty much boiled down to the fact that the university has
committed a huge number of unfair labor practices at the bargaining table.
You just heard from academic workers within the U.
C. Meaning the university
of California system.
And this is a historic strike to say the least the largest strike of U.
C. Workers in history.
And I love the fact that they're speaking out because as you can
imagine it's incredibly expensive to live in a state like California.
And when you are an academic worker meaning you have you're you
have the credentials to teach okay you're literally doing the heavy
lifting to teach at a university level but you're not tenured and
you're not making enough money to just live and have your basic needs met.
And that's what they're striking about 48,000 University of California.
Academic workers including postdoctoral scholars,
postdoctoral scholars, graduate teaching assistants and
researchers walked off the job this week in a strike billed as
the largest at any academic institution in history.
You know, I saw some right wing commentary about the strike, and the argument is,
well, I mean, if you make the decision to get a worthless degree,
what do you expect?
Except the degree isn't worthless because they're literally doing the heavy lifting
in these classes by instructing the university students on whatever their
majors are, right, Whatever class they're taking within their major john, I don't
care what the right wing thinks about literally any strike, especially this one.
I'm shocked.
They don't care about people who work at universities being abused.
First of all, of course, they're not gonna care its workers and they despise workers.
They're not interested in workers, but
in particularly people whose entire job is the the pursuit or
dissemination of information, not interested in any of that.
Now, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be.
There are plenty of fields in academia that have a right wing slant at
the very least.
But they've been trained, it's just, it's propaganda.
They've been trained to think that universities are, for some reason,
inherently left wing, which is simply, no, not the case historically or
in the modern era.
And so they're not going to support this.
So let's set them decide who the hell cares.
Yeah, it's historic.
It's absolutely massive.
Hard to imagine how they don't succeed so long as they can, you know,
maintain solidarity.
Just the sheer number.
Like the system can't afford like they can't replace nearly 50,000 workers.
That's simply too much.
It's a demonstration of how scale can be so significant in one of these efforts in
the video that was put together, which I guess it was Washington post interviews.
So credit to the Washington post,
they're actually going in interviewing the workers.
That's awesome.
It looked like a video that was put together like buy more Perfect union or
something.
So it was a great video to be fair.
And while, you know, the national press hasn't really covered this story
much with the exception of the Washington post, you know,
I've had to rely on on local reporting on the matter.
There there has been some journalism around this, but
I think there should be a lot more, especially when you consider the sheer
volume of workers that are striking right now in California 48,000.
To be exact.
Let me give you some more details because I want you to know about what they're
asking for and what they've already rejected from the U.
C. System.
In terms of pay raises.
This one comment from a Safa hamzi who's a teaching assistant and
international doctoral student.
Just it gives the whole game away and
when I say that I'm referring to how you actually accomplish political goals.
Okay, this is the strongest tool we have against the administration when we
are striking, we're not grading, we're not attending sections were not
attending lectures, we're not holding office hours.
When that happens, the entire education progress stops when we strike,
you can see that we do most of the work because all of the work stops.
So obviously this makes a lot of sense in this context, but
it also makes a lot of sense in any other context.
The reason why having, like an organized workforce is a good thing is because
if you do decide to strike, and if you do have that union protection and
they have a strike fund to make you whole while you're striking.
Well, it, first of all informs everyone of just how valuable you are as the worker,
as the person in most cases generating the revenue necessary for the company.
In this case they're generating, you know,
the instruction, the education that these students are paying for
without them, these classes can't go on right.
And a lot of the tenured professors are pressured to do research.
Like, you gotta do research, you gotta publish, you gotta publish,
you gotta publish.
And so they do focus most of their energy there.
And that's why when it comes to the heavy lifting inside the classroom,
it's usually these non tenured academic employees who are doing it,
we're doing the hard work, by the way, real quick.
Just to give you the details on what they're asking for.
Surveys by the U.
A. W.
found that 92% of graduate workers and
61% of postdoctoral scholars were rent burdened.
They want to see all graduate student workers who are teaching assistants and
tutors earn a base salary of $54,000.
More than double these workers average current pay of just
$24,000 according to the Union.
That is insane.
By the way we're talking about California guys and
to be clear even 45 like I don't know how it's possible.
How do you live on $45,000 in California?
And that's that's why the thing that stuck out to me the most in the video.
And I don't know to what extent it's true for
different sorts of workers or whatever.
But at least one of the people being interviewed said they're not legally
allowed to have a second job.
Yeah they're not I don't know how that's tenable.
I like when I was a lecture and ta and tutor and
I ran an experimental lab and all that stuff.
I waited tables which is its own issue.
I should not have had to do that to survive.
It definitely held me back in my ability to to do well in the academic environment.
But at least I could do it and supplement my salary that way like crushing people
between low pay ever increasing rent let alone they're not gonna be able to buy
obviously but even the rent is increasing and
then not allowing them to work hard on the side to make it work.
It's insane why.
That's just crazy.
That seems like a layup but makes no sense.
It really it's it's terrible but like I agree with you I mean they shouldn't even
have to look for a side hustle or a second job just to make ends meet.
And even with the pay that they're asking for the base salary that they're
asking for they would still need a second job to make ends meet.
I can't emphasize enough how astronomically expensive it is to live in
California.
The housing is crazy.
You I mean it depends on where you're living but
in most parts of California there is no real public transportation.
There is some in in the bay area.
The Bart system is decent but
if you're in Los Angeles trying to get some off the ground but it's not great.
You need a car, okay you need to pay for the insurance,
you need to make the car payments, you need gas.
Like you can't survive even on the base salary they're demanding,
you probably want to eat food occasionally.
That that could help you know you might need that sustenance to be able to you
know think when you're instructing students and
by the way if I could add to like as you said you know and
as has been described by some of those people there again the U.
C. System might be different in some ways but
so they obviously do the grading Prock during exams and things like that.
Like literally you you cannot maintain a class without those things.
But bear in mind allow these workers will also guest lecture when the professor
can't be there and then even outside of the they're they're holding office hours
and tutoring sessions and all that.
But outside of the academic part on the research part which also brings in a lot
of money.
They do that too.
Two I like a lot of those the professors are not running these studies
individually.
They're not doing all the research individually.
I and other graduate workers were doing that.
They do plenty of work and it wouldn't be possible that the professors too and
by the way they should be paid well.
But every every part of this will lock up without them.
And so and by the way not only can they not afford to let this maintain
because then students will drop out so they lose the tuition money but
what about their accreditation?
The reputation of the school can they go a semester to without terrible damage being
done to their reputation.
Know what stood out to me about how the U.
C. System and
I'm sure other university systems are the same way But nonetheless the way the U.
C. System is carrying out their treatment of
workers reminds me a lot of walmart.
Okay so what do I mean by that walmart is notorious for
paying their full time full time workers So
little that the government has to subsidize walmart by paying like
social safety net benefits to their workers who literally work full time but
still don't make enough money to be able to make ends meet.
Same thing is happening in this U.
C. System.
Okay. Where their academic employees who
are probably also drowning in student loan debt?
Let's not forget that part of it.
They're having to rely on California programs.
Like cal fresh cal fresh is the statewide you know food stamp program.
So why are we as California taxpayers subsidizing the bad behavior and
the poor treatment of you know the U.
C. System toward its workers.
Like why why are we you know what I'm saying?
Like it's it's pretty sick that we're subsidizing this.
And so I don't want academic employees to have to rely on government aid.
I have no problem with government aid.
I think I'm pretty clear about that.
I'm 100% supportive of the social safety net.
I wanted to be far more robust but the fact that workers especially like academic
workers who are doing the heavy lifting in the classroom.
The fact that they have to rely on government programs to make ends meet is
sick And then you also consider how much they're bringing in the U.
C. System is bringing in through tuition and
how much they're paying their chancellors.
Okay so let's final point on that let's go to graphic eight.
The chancellors of the university of California's nine undergraduate campuses.
Each got raises.
Each got raises john okay Under the action taken
by the university's Board of Regents in january.
The raises would range from about 6% to 28%.
After the raises the salaries of the chancellors would range
from about just $522,000 to $640,000.
Well they're probably teaching a lot of classes I assume probably grinding it
out grading papers and stuff like political positions.
What's interesting is the university system has defended the pay raises for
the chancellor's by arguing look we we need to be competitive so
we can draw in the best talent.
But wait you don't feel that way when it comes to the actual educators the people
who do the heavy lifting within the classrooms.
You don't think you need to find the best and the brightest and
have like competitive salaries to attract the best.
And the brightest.
Not sick.
The whole thing is sick.
So solidarity with the striking workers.
I really really hope they get more than what they're asking for
because you know even what they're asking for here.
I don't I don't know how they would make ends meet on $54,000 if they're
like living in the bay area, right?
If they're at Berkeley and a lot of them make a lot less than that.
Yeah, exactly.