On Friday, UC Santa Cruz dismissed 54 graduate student teaching assistants for withholding Fall Quarter 2019 undergraduate grades as part of the wildcat strike for a cost-of-living adjustment, which began nearly three weeks ago.
COLA movements have popped up in every UC except for UC Francisco. Siavash Ghadiri / Daily Nexus
UCSC spokesperson Scott Hernandez-Jason confirmed that UCSC dismissed the 54 graduate students, writing that UCSC leadership is “well aware of the housing crisis in Santa Cruz and has made numerous good faith efforts to offer solutions and assist our TAs.”
He added that the “vast majority” of UCSC graduate students have returned to work.
In an email sent out to the UCSC campus community, Interim Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer said that UCSC “has been left with no choice but to take an action that we truly and deeply hoped to avoid.”
“We ultimately cannot retain graduate students as teaching assistants who will not fulfill their responsibilities,” she said. “While we have been able to successfully get 96 percent of grades submitted for the fall quarter, we cannot again jeopardize our undergraduates’ education or put them in a position where they may not have the teaching resources they need to succeed throughout the spring quarter.”
Prior to Friday, the UCSC administration had offered striking graduate students several substitutions to a COLA, including a one-time $2,500 stipend in financial aid, as well as two temporary housing assistance programs for graduate students. But the UCSC COLA movement, which is asking for a COLA of $1,412 per month, denounced UCSC’s offer, both on the picket line and on social media.
These are the first official reported terminations as a result of the strike, despite weeks of threats from administrators. The original deadline for UCSC graduate students to turn in Fall Quarter 2019 undergraduate grades was last Friday, Feb. 21; UCSC later said it would verify which students submitted their grades yesterday, Feb. 27.
Several graduate students who received dismissal letters posted screenshots of them on social media; one graduate student who had their spring quarter teaching assistant position with the feminist studies department terminated, Zia Puig, shared their letter with the Nexus. The letter can be viewed below:
Courtesy of Zia Puig
“It’s not only about disrupting the function of the university. It’s about standing against the hyper-exploitation, standing against racism, it’s about standing against the way Janet Napolitano deported people,” Puig said, referring to their decision to continue withholding grades past the Feb. 27 deadline.
Puig, who said half of their monthly paycheck goes toward rent, said they believe that the spring quarter dismissals are only the first wave, and that the administration will continue to suppress graduate students’ efforts.
“I literally have thirty dollars in my credit card. I don’t have money in my bank account. When I started [going on] this strike, I started because I literally cannot afford another month here,” even as a Cota-Robles fellow, one of the “best” fellowships at UCSC, Puig said.
“People really need to understand that when we say we are literally starving, it is not an exaggeration. And that when we say we cannot pay rent, it is not an exaggeration. This is not a bunch of rich kids from UC Santa Cruz that are having fun doing a strike,” they added.
UCSC graduate students have been striking without the authorization of their union, United Auto Workers Local 2865. In response to the news that UCSC had fired 54 of its graduate student workers, the union sent out a press release condemning UCSC’s decision, saying they were “shocked by UC’s callousness.”
“Instead of firing TAs who are standing up for a decent standard of living for themselves, UC must sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a cost of living increase,” UAW 2865 President Kavitha Iyengar said in the press release.
Iyengar further urged the UC to come to the bargaining table to discuss a COLA for the 19,000 workers that the union represents, something the union has been formally asking for since Jan. 15.
Hundreds of UC Santa Barbara graduate students teaching assistants began their own indefinite wildcat strike yesterday morning, meaning they will not grade, hold sections or do any work not related to their own degrees until the university meets their demands for a COLA of $1,807.51 per month.
The UC Office of the President did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Twitter, U.S. Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders condemned UCSC’s decision to dismiss the graduate students, calling it “disgraceful.”
“All workers deserve the right to bargain and strike for better wages and benefits. To Janet Napolitano and @UCSC: stop this outrageous union busting and negotiate in good faith,” Sanders said on his Twitter account.
This is disgraceful. All workers deserve the right to bargain and strike for better wages and benefits. To Janet Napolitano and @UCSC: stop this outrageous union busting and negotiate in good faith. https://t.co/oaQGTovOdW
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 29, 2020
Updated [4:33 p.m.]
LOL! That didn’t work out as planned ….Good byyyeee!! Stick to the contracts you agree too!
Yes! Good bye! Welcome to the real world where we all pay 60% for housing. Wait till you get a real job and try wildcat striking – you’ll be fired way sooner. You were getting free tuition and wages and you couldn’t find a way to make it work?!?!
Teaching at a University is a real job. Just a cursory look into this situation would invalidate your strange and incorrect opinion. Our society requires people with a graduate degree and we should value the interests of those trying to better themselves and our country. Santa Cruz is incredibly expensive as a result of a huge college population and “pour over” from Silicon valley and it is near impossible to live there without a professional salary. I teach at a University (Tulane University) and got my undergraduate diploma (cum laude) in Earth Sciences from UCSC. The graduate students I had… Read more »
teaching is a real job but you aren’t teachers you are teachers assistants and do part time work while you full time pursue your education. You are reimbursed at a part time rate while you want full time benefits from part time work. You make decisions and refuse to live with the ramifications of what your choices mean.
ouch reality hits hard
They probably did most of them a favor because they were never going to get jobs in their fields of study to begin with.
IDIOTS!!! Goodbye morons!! No need to have immature disrespectful students representing the UC System!
This is a very reasonable response. Regardless of your stance on COLA, you have to admit that it’s abhorrent to force undergraduate students, especially those who are financially struggling to attend university in the first place, to fifth year/not receive the education they are paying for.
I’m an undergrad and out of the classes where we were told our grades were to be held, grad students had near full support from us. It does not force us into 5th year, it is a just a hold on grades and TA’s are making exceptions when needed (financial aid, graduation, etc.). We stand united as a community of students – if one of our own can not afford their housing or to eat this affects our education and it affects all of us. They are risking their jobs obv they have exhausted other options. . The strike demonstrations… Read more »
Okay cool, it sounds like you’re not financially struggling to be here. Some of us are. And if grades don’t get submitted, we don’t get to graduate.
YOU might support them, but you’re not speaking for undergrads as a whole.
TAs have been giving students who ask for them their grades, no questions asked, since the beginning. So if you need your grades right now due to urgency relating to financial aid, graduating, etc. then you can get them.
the undergads just have to do a bunch more work and have a lot more stress because the grads students minimally care
I mean, sending a simple email to your TA asking for your grade isn’t exactly “a bunch more work,” it probably would take you less time than it took for you to read this article and write your comment on it.
A huge thing that has been stressed by the folks organizing the strike is that we in no way should be harming the undergraduate students. We explain to all of our students why we are striking, why it’s important, and that this doesn’t mean we’re abandoning them. During the grade strike I actually worked more hours to make myself available to my students in extended office hours so they could come talk to me and get feedback about their assignments and I could tell them their grades. None of this grade strike is causing students to fail or receive an… Read more »
you work part time for part time wages stop the false equivalency.
Those making more than a million are nobel prize winners and professors who bring in lots of grant money. who offer grad students like you opportunities to be in lab, learn and are probably the reason many people chose to come here in the first place (that we have top notch faculty). Why do you think that you are worth anything close to that? Gard students deserve student wages.
Yes! A student wage that should be enough to live in the area.
And professors are standing with the students, too, if you have not been informed…
Sorry to hear they forced you to attend without telling you what your compensation for a free education would consist in. That sounds criminally negligent (or a lesson in poor decision making).
And thanks for noting that professors are standing with you. Exactly what percentage? Your comment, absent numerical backing, is meaningless.
God we certainly do credential folk well above their intellectual means.
the grad students stressed no harming the undergrads while taking action to directly harm them
No. You have it all wrong. When graduate TAs withhold grades the students do not care at all. It is the professors who are upset because…well…because they typically are so concerned with teaching and whatnot. (sarcasm alert for the slower of you out there).
Did you even read what they said??
Except in rare cases graduate students do NOT pay for education. It is given free for 4-5 years — as a consequence of acceptance into their program of choice.
LOL@Bernie! They have a contract with a no strike clause. IF this was 2022 and their contract was up and the UC was firing folks for striking at the appropriate time they would have my full support. But this is a misrepresentation of the facts here.
No you wouldn’t; you’d still be licking boots with reckless enthusiasm.
Well that escalated quickly.
Are they nice boots? Tasty leather?
Did you not read where the union condemned admin for the firing and supported negotiations…. ????
Let them go work for the AFL/CIU, ESWU, or the Auto workers, but make sure they have a contract for free tuition, where they only have to work 20 hrs a week and only required to keep two office hrs a week. ( chances are they won’t be able yield controlling corruptive power over undergraduates who look to avoids them anyway)
No kidding!! What the hell is Sanders poking his head in for? Pretty sure he isn’t a senator of California
And it’s not as if they didn’t know Santa Cruz is expensive before moving here.
the union and its members are negotiating in bad faith and should be fined and punished
Uhmm… what? The union is negotiating in bad faith? What about the university firing 80 TAs? Offering only a one-time payment of $2,500 instead of addressing the real problem with the administration? The administration should be fired.
Yes. They have a no strike clause and while you can start negotiations for future contracts, you have a contract already. What is the point to negotiation a current contract that is already ratified? What is the incentive for an organization to negotiation with a union if they know that their membership will throw the agreement out the window if they want something different. The contract is very clear, there were consequences to their actions, and they were followed. Now, if you can get upwards of 90% of the grad students to strike then you might have a chance as… Read more »
Christ….. enough with the facts man, (requiring people to live up to contracts) What kind of capitalist system do you want us to live in?
nvm
Yes!!! Yes!!!!!!!!!! Now, get your asses back to work UCSB TAs! They ain’t playin!
Back to striking :)
Cool! So they can get fired too!
Mass termination of employment will be a good thing. This system is broken already and soon it will spread to other industries as well.
This is too good! ‘Mass termination of employment will be a good thing.’ Guess what?? EVERYONE is replaceable, except for the ones who have actual skills. They’re too busy to strike.
Well, let’s see if UCSC can replace those TAs. I am waiting for some tea.
LMAO. Yeah lets see how well that ends. UCSC has already fired or barred over 80 TAs from employment next quarter. In response almost 500 grad students have pledged to refuse teaching assignments next quarter one way or another. All have pledged not to fill any opening vacated by a fired colleague, and 175 have pledged to refuse any teaching assignment until the fired students are reinstated.
Good luck conducting discussions and labs with no TAs. Good luck getting all the grading done for a 400 person class with only one professor handling all that workload.
I am not surprised. COLA is already winning. The mass termination of employment is the testament to how UCSC’s administration mishandles this situation.
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what TAs do for the UC system, especially their duties. A work-to-rule action would grind the system to a halt in short order. But UC grad students tend to be overachievers in the first place, who are more focused on their work than the bottom line. Good TAs work far longer hours than they are contractually obliged to; and their contracts forbid them from finding outside work to make ends meet. The UC relies on their labor to generate income, because it means the UC can admit more full-tuition out-of-state students,… Read more »
Their contracts do not in any way forbid additional work. That said they do need permission from Dean if it is in campus. However, UCSC needs to build affordable grad housing.
Grad students are overworked, true, but a $2,400 stipend? My gosh that’s more than my pay as one of the receptionists on campus while my spouse was a grad student. It’s true, everyone suffers from paying too much rent around here not just grad students, but that comes from lack of housing because of the excessive and expensive building regulations and permits. Supply and demand. Existing home-owners and landlords bank on this. And why is the union not taking responsibility for having agreed to undesirable terms before signing a binding contract, and now they take no risk while the students… Read more »
I am a student at UCSC. I personally have not been affected much by the strikes but I do not support it. Whether they strike or not, they have to follow the contracts. By withholding the grades and not doing their jobs, they are not just screwing over themselves, they are screwing over the other students. We paid thousands of dollars a quarter to attend UCSC. We did not pay that money to have our classes and sections cancelled. We did not pay to stream online the classes. If we could stream the classes online, we would not have paid… Read more »
Odd, I didn’t realize Santa Cruz was offering a Bootlicking 101 course this quarter. You must be really salty considering how well you’ve done in the class, that you won’t have that 4.0 showing up on your transcript so you can run home and show mummy and daddy what a good little automaton you are.
good job don’t respond to an any of the many valid points that were made instead attack the person for having a different point of view from yours.
He is just doing what every other UC student has been trained to do. If you don’t agree with someone, shout them down and call them a fascist.
Ah yes, if you don’t have a valid point, attack the person and the very nature of their statement. Do nothing to forward the conversation and accuse them of “bootlicking.” You are crap, trash, worthless. There I translated it to your low language.
Learn how to spell, troll.