A Landmark Wage Increase at the University of California

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A Landmark Wage Increase at the University of California
Graduate students won a major raise after five weeks on strike. The victory is a product of the militancy that has pushed the union to the vanguard of organized labor in higher ed.

Nelson Lichtenstein ▪ December 24, 2022


(Dissent) After a five-week strike at the University of California, employed graduate students have ratified a pathbreaking new contract that offers most of them 50 or 60 percent wage hikes within the next two-and-a-half years.

The agreement, which covers more than 36,000 at the ten UC campuses, was not without controversy, with some arguing it was hardly far-reaching enough. Among teaching assistants, tutors, and readers, 11,386 voted yes, with just over 7,000 voting against. Student researchers, largely in the sciences, favored the agreement more strongly, with more than ten thousand supportive and less than half that opposed.

The agreement is a stunning accomplishment, raising the bar for all workers, in the academy or not, who have faced an inflationary surge that has eroded real incomes and generated economic anxiety in a post-pandemic era where layoffs and recession loom just over the horizon.

The UC grad students, who are organized into the United Auto Workers, have more than doubled the raises won in other recent wage settlements. Railway workers got just a 24 percent increase in the five-year contract that Congress imposed on them earlier this month; another recent agreement, for grocery workers in Southern California, provides for about a 20 percent boost over three years. Grad student employees at other universities have had to settle for single-digit wage increases. And for the 90 percent of all U.S. workers who are not in a union, pay has hardly kept pace with inflation, while employment turnover remains high. ...............(more)

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-landmark-wage-increase-at-the-university-of-california