Landmark wage increase for UC student workers still keeps some below poverty line

Will University of California Academic Workers End the Strike?
Striking academic workers hold a rally at UC Berkeley in November. Student employees and researchers ratified new contracts with the UC system Dec. 23, ending a six-week strike.Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Student employees and researchers ratified new contracts with University of California on Friday, ending a six-week strike. But the result will still keep academic workers in Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles below the poverty line.

By March, teacher assistants will receive a 7.5% pay increase, and teaching fellows will receive an 8.9% increase, the University of California said in a statement. Student researchers will earn 10% pay increases within the first year of ratification. By October 2024, the minimum salary for UC Berkeley, UCSF and UCLA teaching assistants will be $36,500, up from $24,000.

A group of union members across the university system who voted no launched the “strike to win” campaign, hoping to bargain for higher salaries and “livable wages.” The campaign picked up momentum during the week-long voting process, which began Dec. 19, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

At least 38% of student employees and 32% of student researchers voted no on the contract. The vote breakdown was 11,386 to 7,097 for student employees, represented by UAW 2865, and 10,057 to 4,640 for student researchers represented by SRU-UAW.

The California Labor Federation threw its weight behind the strike, the largest of academic workers in U.S. history. In a statement before the strike began in November, Lorena Gonzalez, executive secretary-treasurer of the federation, said, “It is outrageous that these workers make poverty wages at some of the wealthiest institutions in our state.”

Gonzalez and UAW president Rafael Jaime celebrated the win. On Twitter, Jaime wrote, “What we have accomplished is transformative, but the work is not over — class struggle does not end with one contract.”

Although the approved contract guarantees pay increases for all student workers across the university system, those living and working in Berkeley, San Francisco and Los Angeles who receive the minimum $36,500 will still fall below the poverty line in those cities.

According to the U.S Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure, the federal poverty line considers a family of four making $26,200 or less as living in poverty. In California, a family of four with an income of around $40,000 or less is considered to be living under the poverty line.

A group known as the University of California Rank-and-File Strike Committee released a statement during the voting process, calling the offer “insulting.”

“The deal would ensure that we will continue to be rent burdened and includes raises which conveniently cut us off from Medi-Cal and food assistance, while not giving us enough to cover our health care and food costs,” the group wrote.

According to the federal Department of Health Care Services, an individual must make under $18,755 to qualify for Medi-Cal and a family of four must make under $38,295.

The Strike Committee also demanded that voting be extended by two weeks, into the new year, to “ensure adequate time for the full democratic process,” noting that “many international students are out of the country and most are not on campus and checking emails during the break.” UAW 2865 and SRU-UAW represents 36,000 workers collectively; 33,180 voted on the contract.

The price of a strike

Organizers of the strike argued that UC, the third-largest employer in the state, has more than enough funds to meet the unions’ demands and that the university system could not function without its student workers.

Between 2007 and 2013, faculty salaries have plateaued or declined at UC, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, and the university system has since relied more on untenured, non-tenure and part-time faculty to provide instruction. Employing nontenured faculty allows universities more staffing flexibility, which is advantageous during budget downturns.

Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom pledged to give annual budget increases of 5% to the University of California, with the aim of increasing enrollment, improving graduation rates and making tuition more affordable overall. The funding agreements were included in the governor’s January budget proposal.

The proposal provides UC a $201 million (5%) General Fund base increase in 2022-2023. With additional tuition revenue (an estimated $45 million), UC will have $246 million more available to cover core operating cost increases — and salaries.

UC, in exchange, must report annually on its progress. According to its most recent budget plan, nearly 70% of the $10.6 billion budget expenditures fund faculty and staff salaries and benefits; the plan includes cost increases for tenured faculty, but omits student researchers specifically.

The student workforce outnumbers tenured faculty four to one. There are roughly 48,000 student workers (36,000 represented by the two largest unions) and 12,000 tenured and tenure-track faculty members.

Nelson Lichtenstein, research professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote for Dissent Magazine that the pay divide could strike “many as inequitable, institutionalizing the more elite status of those campuses.”

“The divergent wage scales that give teaching assistants in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley a $2,500-a-year advantage are sure to rankle for the next two and a half years, until the current contract expires,” he wrote.

@allyson-aleksey

aaleksey@sfexaminer.com

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