The 48,000-Worker Strike at the University of California Is Still Going
The massive walkout at California’s flagship public university system is the largest strike in the US in recent years, and it’s now in its second week. Jacobin spoke with striking grad student workers at UC Riverside and UC Irvine.
About 48,000 union workers walked off the job at UCLA and nine other UC campuses across the state, in Los Angeles on Monday, November 14, 2022. (Brittany Murray / MediaNews Group / Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images)
A strike involving 48,000 graduate student workers, postdocs, and academic researchers across the University of California system is wrapping up its second week. Organizers say that the strike is the largest academic strike in US history; it also happens to be one of the largest strikes, period, in the country in the last few years. Last Friday, November 18, Jacobin’s Sara Wexler spoke with striking grad student workers at UC Riverside about their demands and their experiences during the strike.
Sara Wexler
Can you tell me why you’re on strike today?
Mai Nguyen Do
So, our classrooms are overcrowded, our workplace buildings are often in dangerous disrepair and inaccessible, and our wages are low. But rents are still high. Our labor as academic workers is what keeps the University of California running. And yet the UC refuses to compensate us thoroughly, make our workplaces truly accessible, or bargain over these issues in good faith. That’s why thousands of academic workers like myself are on strike and will need to be on strike until the university comes to the table in good faith and stops engaging in unfair labor practices.
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