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University of California Academic Employees Strike for Higher Pay

In one of the nation’s biggest strikes in recent years, teaching assistants, researchers and other workers walked off the job Monday, forcing some classes to be canceled.

Academic workers on the University of California, Berkeley, campus went on strike on Monday to seek better wages and working conditions.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

SACRAMENTO — Tens of thousands of academic workers across the University of California system walked out on Monday in one of the nation’s largest strikes in recent years, as teaching assistants, researchers and other university employees called for significant pay increases in the face of rising housing costs.

The walkout, the latest in a wave of union activity in a booming labor market, covers nearly 48,000 unionized campus employees at the prestigious public university system. Classes were disrupted, research slowed and office hours canceled as thousands of workers picketed at campuses from San Diego to Berkeley. Some faculty canceled lectures in sympathy with the strikers or shifted instruction to Zoom to avoid crossing picket lines in the largely pro-labor state.

The university system has said its 10 campuses, where nearly 300,000 students are enrolled, would remain open and that instruction and operations would continue. But the students and employees involved, who are represented by the United Automobile Workers, make up a core work force in classrooms and labs throughout the university system, where most campuses are only a few weeks away from final examinations. The unions involved have not set an end date.

“We’re the ones who perform the majority of the teaching, and we’re the ones who perform the majority of the research,” said Rafael Jaime, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is president of U.A.W. Local 2865, which represents some 19,000 teaching assistants, tutors and other classroom workers.

“We’re the backbone of the university,” he said, “and I have a hard time seeing how operations are going to be maintained with us on the picket line.”

Graduate students at universities across the country have long been integral to higher education, advising students, teaching classes, grading exams and papers, and staffing major research projects and labs. In recent years, however, concerted efforts to increase pay and improve often insecure working conditions have gained traction, especially as wages have risen in other sectors during a hot, post-pandemic labor market.

Encouraged by polls showing popular support for organized labor reaching its highest point since the mid-1960s, unions this year have used their bargaining power to make inroads at high-profile companies such as Amazon and Starbucks. According to the U.A.W., the strike at the University of California is the largest university-based labor action in U.S. history.

Paula Voos, a professor in Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said the current economy is ripe for labor activism.

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Some classes at the University of California’s 10 campuses were canceled and research put on hold as thousands of academic workers went on strike.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

“If you go back in labor history, the economy at a time like the present has often been a time of high strikes,” Dr. Voos said. “It’s the peak of the business cycle, low unemployment, high inflation, businesses are worrying about the next downturn, layoffs are starting, we’re not in a recession yet. But we’re worried about it and business is cutting back and saying no.”

Three years ago, a “wildcat” strike at the University of California, Santa Cruz — conducted without the backing of the union that represents the workers statewide — ended with the firing of more than 70 graduate students who had refused to turn in fall grades as part of the labor action. Most were eventually reinstated. This year, in contrast, unionized graduate students and adjunct professors have negotiated contracts at Columbia University and New York University.

Dr. Voos cautioned, however, that the oversupply of graduate students, especially in the humanities, also puts universities in a position of strength in labor negotiations. “The students are vulnerable because they need recommendations from professors, they’re afraid for their future, the academic labor market is not very good right now,” she said.

The University of California workers, many of whom have been negotiating with the U.C. system for more than a year, are demanding that their salaries more than double in some cases, particularly to address the cost of housing. The U.C. campuses lie in some of the most expensive housing markets in the nation, not just in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, but coastal enclaves such as Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz and Irvine. Even subsidized campus housing costs in some areas are significantly more expensive than market rents in much of the country.

Campus-area housing has long been a policy concern, vexing state lawmakers and inciting town-gown legal battles. In a union survey, 92 percent of graduate student workers said housing consumed more than a third of their income. For 40 percent of them, it was more than half.

Mr. Jaime, 33, who teaches an introductory Shakespeare class at U.C.L.A., said he could not afford an apartment in the Westwood neighborhood surrounding the campus. Instead, he lives in downtown Los Angeles, more than 15 miles away, sharing rent with two roommates. Even so, he said, the $1,600 he pays for rent each month eats up half of his paycheck, not counting the costs of his commute to campus via bicycle, light rail and bus.

The workers are also demanding more reimbursement for public transit, additional child care subsidies, expanded health care for dependents and other benefits.

In a statement, the university system said it recognized the “important and highly valued contributions” to its teaching and research mission made by the workers and that it had provided “fair responses” on issues including pay, housing and a “respectful work environment.”

“We have listened carefully to U.A.W. priorities with an open mind and a genuine willingness to compromise,” the statement said, adding that “many tentative agreements” on issues such as health and safety had been reached.

On Monday afternoon, the university system said it had proposed that a neutral, third-party mediator be brought into the negotiations, adding that under its current proposals, wages for U.C. academic employees “would be among the top of the pay scale” for public research universities, and “more comparable to private universities” such as Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California.

But major differences remain. Workers want salaries to be set high enough that no employees would have to spend more than 30 percent of their monthly pay on housing; the U.C. system has noted that housing is an issue for workers throughout California, and that it already provides a limited amount of subsidized housing for graduate student workers that is priced at up to 25 percent below market rates.

Union officials say that the university system also has violated labor law nearly two dozen times in the course of negotiations, dealing directly with certain groups of workers and changing certain working conditions without going through collective bargaining. These unfair labor practices, officials say, triggered the strike.

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Along with higher wages, workers are demanding more reimbursement for public transit, additional child care subsidies, expanded health care for dependents and other benefits.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

“The university needs to bargain fairly,” said Neal Sweeney, president of the U.A.W. bargaining unit that represents academic researchers and postdoctoral scholars. “If they do that, we think we can reach a transformative agreement.”

The university system has denied any illegal action and has called on the unions to stay at the bargaining table. “We are committed to continuing to negotiate in good faith and reaching full agreements as soon as possible,” the statement from the University of California said.

On Monday, the strike appeared to have created significant disruptions. At U.C. Berkeley, picketers demonstrated on a campus that seemed nearly emptied by canceled classes. At U.C. San Diego, a nanotechnology research lab that normally employs about a dozen doctoral, post-doctoral and undergraduate students was closed.

At U.C.L.A., sections of Sociology 101, architecture and other popular undergraduate classes were canceled as the voices of hundreds of strikers boomed throughout the sprawling campus: “U.C., U.C., you can’t hide! We can see your greedy side!”

Enrique Olivares Pesante, a fourth-year doctoral candidate in English at U.C.L.A. who was picketing in front of the school’s film building, said he makes $2,500 per month before taxes, and pays more than half of that in rent for his graduate housing. Most teaching assistants make far less, he said, adding: “It came to this because it was untenable.”

At U.C. Berkeley, Chaka Tellem, 21, the student body president and a senior, sympathized with the strike even though his classes in macroeconomics and African American history had been canceled. “We are on a campus that recognizes, historically and to this day, the importance of collective action, the importance of strikes and nonviolent direct action,” he said.

Meanwhile, Anthony Huo, 19, said he had his hands full just trying to figure out whether his next class would be meeting.

“I think it’s happening,” he said, hustling through the fall air across the storied Berkeley campus. “Maybe? I don’t know. I’ll try.”

Soumya Karlamangla, Holly Secon, Anemona Hartocollis and Noam Scheiber contributed reporting.

Shawn Hubler is a California correspondent based in Sacramento. Before joining The Times in 2020 she spent nearly two decades covering the state for The Los Angeles Times as a roving reporter, columnist and magazine writer, and shared three Pulitzer Prizes won by the paper's Metro staff.  More about Shawn Hubler

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Thousands of Academic Workers Strike for Higher Pay at University of California. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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