On Monday, November 14, four different unions representing forty-eight thousand graduate student workers and academic researchers across the University of California system went on strike. Organizers are saying it’s the biggest academic strike in US history, and it’s one of the biggest strikes, period, in the last few years.

Academic workers say they’re striking against the UC’s unfair labor practices and its refusal to bargain in good faith over new contracts. In negotiations for new contracts, workers say, the university has refused to agree to wage increases that keep up with California’s skyrocketing cost of living. On Monday, Jacobin spoke with workers on the picket line at the University of California, Berkeley, about their demands and their experience organizing for the strike.