17,000 University of California Researchers Could Soon Win a Union
University of California student researchers have announced they have union authorization cards from a super-majority of 17,000 researchers throughout the UC system — one of the largest union drives in recent US history. We spoke to three of the researchers about why they want a union.
A protest on the University of California, Berkeley campus in November 2011. (Max Whittaker / Getty Images)
In late May, student researchers from across the University of California (UC) system delivered over 10,000 signed union authorization cards to the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), representing a unit of 17,000 workers. If they win their union, the total number of union members in the United States would increase by 0.1 percent.
Jacobin’s Oren Schweitzer sat down with KDan Lee, Sierra Dodd, and Tanzil Chowdhury, student researchers in the UC system and worker-leaders in the SRU-UAW campaign, to talk to them about their unionization effort.
Oren Schweitzer
What sort of work do you do as student researchers?
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