SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Striking graduate student employees across the University of California will vote this week on whether to ratify tentative contracts, potentially ending a month-long work stoppage and securing double-digit wage increases for tens of thousands of workers.
Not everyone is happy about the deal, though. Groups of workers on each campus are campaigning for a “no” vote on the tentative agreements. They argue strikers shouldn’t settle for contracts that they say inadequately address California’s high cost of living.
Until the contracts are ratified, 36,000 workers will remain on strike. They have until 5 p.m. Friday to cast their votes.
If approved, the contracts would raise pay and increase benefits for teaching assistants, student researchers, tutors and others represented by the United Auto Workers units. The lowest-paid workers would see raises of up to 66% over the 2.5-year life of the contract, and by October 2024, most graduate student workers would make $34,000 or more for part-time work during the academic year.
“It’s amazing that we potentially will have a contract by Christmas,” said Emily Weintraut, a doctoral candidate in UC Davis’s food science department who works as a teaching assistant and student researcher. “I’m so excited for it.”
The incremental raises are a far cry from the unions’ original demand of a $54,000 starting minimum salary. That’s why some workers are advocating for a better deal.
“I buy a lot of peanut butter, because I can’t afford much more than that,” said Cole Manley, a third-year doctoral candidate in UC Davis’s history department and a rank-and-file member of UAW 2865. “There are days where I will just eat peanut butter sandwiches.”
Manley pays $1,900 per month in rent — about 80% of his salary — and he works a second job as a freelance researcher for a former professor to help make ends meet. Financial stress and anxiety seep into his work days and often distract him from his research on social movements and labor history.
“I can’t do my research as a PhD student or my work because I have to worry about what I’m going to eat for lunch or dinner,” he said.
Manley and a group of 100 other UC Davis doctoral students sent emails to union members encouraging them to vote against ratifying the contracts. Similar opposition groups have mobilized across the other nine campuses, Manley said.
They assert that California’s high inflation will eat up much of the raises presented in the latest contract offer, and workers shouldn’t have to hold out for two years to reap the full compensation increases that the offer promises. Instead, they’re demanding immediate pay raises as well as cost-of-living adjustments for each campus based on local housing costs.
“We don’t have two years to wait,” Manley said. “We need a historic increase because our base salary is so low, and because inflation is so high.”
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