At the peak of day one of the UC Santa Barbara graduate students’ strike, more than 1,000 students swarmed Storke Tower, marching from the center of campus to the Mosher Alumni House to the University Library, chanting over and over, “What do we want? COLA! When do we want it? Now!”
Four hours later, with their voices growing weak but still 50 strong, graduate students packed up their base camp, preparing to return for the next day — to return indefinitely or until graduate students vote in a general assembly to end the strike.
UCSB COLA movement is looking to capitalize on the large crowds that showed up for Thursday’s rally and turn that into a deeper involvement with the movement as a whole. Siavash Ghadiri / Daily Nexus
Thursday marked the first day of the UCSB graduate students’ cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) strike; the strike is planned to continue indefinitely or until graduate students vote in a general assembly to end it. While on strike, UCSB graduate students who work as teaching assistants will withhold Winter 2020 grades and will not hold any sections or do any work unrelated to their own degrees.
A large number of graduate students, undergraduates and faculty returned for the second day of the strike, with upwards of 300 showing up for day two of the rally.
UCSB’s graduate students are from the second campus within the UC system to go on strike in the fight for a COLA; UC Santa Cruz graduate students are on their 13th day on the picket line, and UC Davis recently announced that they will be withholding grades starting yesterday.
Every UC campus — except for UC San Francisco — has taken some form of organizing action for a COLA.
The strike at UCSB began at 8 a.m. and continued until 5 p.m., with a rally at noon where close to 1,600 people filled the Storke Tower lawn. The crowd heard from various organizers, faculty and undergraduates before marching across bike lanes, through the Arbor and to the Mosher Alumni House parking lot. On the way back to Storke Tower, a crowd formed a circle around the University Library, continuing to chant while other speakers spoke.
Diane Fujino, a professor and interim chair in the department of Asian American studies, said to the crowd at the rally that the university needs to be more seriously addressing COLA.
“When the Thomas Fires hit, this university took extraordinary measures — finals were moved to another quarter. This, I say, is an extraordinary moment. Graduate students on average spend over 50% of their income on rent. This is untenable.”
Graduate Student Association (GSA) President Cierra Sorin said that the high turnout for the first day of the strike was unexpected.
“I’m not gonna lie, I was scared getting up this morning. I didn’t sleep a whole lot last night; this is a big thing that we’re doing. But people came through,” Sorin said. “Every constituency on campus, I think, came through today, especially the undergrads — there were hundreds of undergrads that came out. I’m in awe.”
Thursday morning began with approximately 20 people, but by 11 a.m., that number grew to over 100, which grew to over 1,000 by noon. A large part of that crowd included undergraduates and faculty who stood in solidarity with graduate students throughout the day; more than 50 S.T.E.M. students also had their own separate march from the Chemistry Lawn before merging into the larger rally at Storke Tower.
At the same time, about 80 faculty members across different departments — all wearing black and several wearing graduation regalia — met at Cheadle Hall and delivered their own demands to Executive Vice Chancellor David Marshall, emphasizing that they believe there should be no retaliation against students or faculty for participating in COLA organizing.
History professor Ann Marie Plane, who was one of the professors that delivered the demands, said in an interview that it was a “cordial meeting” but noted that administration and graduate students may have a hard time coming to an agreement over a COLA without “significant intervention, either by the university administration in Oakland, and/or the state legislature coming up with more funds.”
“We can’t recruit top quality graduate students without some kind of augmentation. Absolutely we’re going to lose students, lose the international quality and character of the institution,” she said.
During the meeting, Marshall said “it would be most appropriate to take this struggle to Sacramento,” referring to the California legislature, since he estimates it would be around $40 to $50 million to meet UCSB’s COLA estimates.
Marshall added that because the strike is happening without the authorization of the graduate student union, United Auto Workers Union 2865, it is the “official line of the Office of the President” that it is “illegal for the university to negotiate with the students.”
Local political leaders also stood in solidarity with graduate students during the strike, including Santa Barbara County 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann, who is running for re-election, and I.V. CSD General Manager Jonathan Abboud, who is running for State Assembly. Karen Jones, who is running against Hartmann for the supervisor seat, also came later in the day in support of COLA and to speak with COLA organizers.
Carlos Cruz, a second-year history doctoral student at UCSC who has continued to withhold his classes’ fall quarter grades, came down to Santa Barbara to speak at the strike, emphasizing the importance of UC-wide action in order to get a UC-wide response from UC President Janet Napolitano.
“Pretty much what it comes down to is, what does solidarity mean? What does solidarity look like? If we’re going to change anything, we have to engage in solidarity,” Cruz said. “Not through the power of institutions, [but through] the power of ourselves.”
As the strike continues into next week, Sorin said COLA organizers plan to have more activities during the day, such as teach-ins and lectures about the history of activism and legal observation training as well as social activities, including board games and dance parties.
Sorin said that the UCSB COLA movement is looking to capitalize on the large crowds that showed up for Thursday’s rally and turn that into a deeper involvement with the movement as a whole.
“We’re having more folks come to us hour by hour being like, ‘What can we do to help, how can I get involved?’ We’re getting people self-assigned to sub-committees, having people continue to show up to meetings,” Sorin said.
Jackson Guilfoil and Holly Rusch contributed reporting.
The UC system as a whole needs to be transformed. At this current point the UC might as well be a private institution. We need to take back our education.
If it was a private institution it would cost three times as much. Get real.
We have far too many graduate students (in many, not all, departments). They cannot get employed in academia (though some will opt for other venues). Why do we need to recruit to run labs? this is a disservice to the student and the field. Of course, fewer students means less funding for the affected departments. So the business model (which is what we really have thanks to Both administration and faculty) is the ultimate cause. If the strikers were truly interested in equity (or capable of understanding the root causes) then they would address them, rather than demand $$ be… Read more »
^patronizing
A truly scholarly way to address the serious and relevant issues I raised (not). If you are you trying to offer yourself an existence proof of the assessment made in the final lines of my post, job well done. Pathetic.
How are grad students alone supposed to restructure the entire “business model” of the UC system? Because a COLA doesn’t magically solve every far-reaching problem in the UC system grad students are out of line for asking for one? These root causes can be assessed (and likely will have to be by administration) while also recognizing that students need more money now in order to live and work here in the short-term. These strikes have already started a lot of discussions of the state of higher ed, and contentions over its future (in the national press, as well as at… Read more »
Nuance is apparently in short supply among supporters who post here. Many departments (mine included) have students receiving free tuition, benefits and working @ 10-15 hours per week (sending parscores to be graded, attending class, holding office hours — the horror) for another 18-20K (more in some departments due to grants, etc). Throwing $$ at a complex problem is an exercise in flawed logic and entitlement. Bucks are nice, but a blunt response to a series of real problems. A COLA does not solve ANY of the serious issues in play. They do not address the inequity of TA duties… Read more »
What about the coronavirus?
Fire them.. spoiled brats.. wanting to live in Santa Barbara on that wage… commute South or North an hour, like many Americans.
Wow you spread even faster than the coronavirus
Yes I work at UCSB and cant afford to live here so I commute south each day. I accepted a job here and knew the pay and accepted it. They should do the same… live somewhere you can afford. No one said you should be guaranteed an income to live in SB! Get over yourselves! I hope the UC doesn’t coddle these entitled brats!
Here is how I survived as a grad student as UCSB. Hopefully, it will help the current ones. I never owned a new phone, laptop or designer clothing. I rarely ate out. I never went on a Spring Break. I spent no money on alcohol or drugs. I never owned a car. I never wasted my time protesting or demanding things. I did take some loans. When I got out of UCSB, I continued to live in cheap apartments for 3 year and payed off my student loans. I did it. You can do it, too.
It’s nice to hear from you, but the situation has gotten worse since you left. The average price for a residential home has nearly doubled since about 10 years ago while the stipend only increases by 3% a year.
Of course, grad students did not protest out of the blue. The administration has been avoiding this issue for too long.
So, you are not willing to follow his advice?
Every grad student I know is already doing the things they suggested, and more. Do you really think that someone living in their car is also buying Gucci and the latest iphone? Get real.
An avg TA works 10 h/ week, gets tuition waiver (>20k). Therefore the effective hourly rate is >100 dollars. What else do you want? Pursuing PHD is an investment. If you are dissatisfied with academic job prospects, simply quit with a master’s and leave room for people who are dying to get these opportunities!
Don’t forget benefits — another several 1000 per year.
The tuition waiver is not salary and those who are dying to get these opportunities are standing with these strikers. UCSC is proud of its world-class education so they better make their scholarship world-class, too. Other UCs have been able to manage the housing crisis one way or another so UCSC better deals with their own problem as well.
I’m with you in solidarity about cost of living. And with staff, most of whom are forced to live in remote cities.
However… tuition is paid directly by department budget for TAs, or by grant for GSRs. It is not waived.
The tuition waiver is not supposed to be a salary. It is a free education. I.e., you get educated and you pay zero for that service. What the hell is your point? (don’t answer — purely rhetorical).
point is why do you get charged full tuition to be a part-time student?
Point is you do not get charged anything. Your appreciation of the situation under discussion is sadly lacking.
You’re missing the point that nobody would actually be willing to TA without also having tuition waived, which says something. Arguably, nobody would be willing to just straight up pay full tuition for any of the grad programs here, so the amount of tuition is pretty arbitrary since nobody actually pays it. So the “value” of the tuition being offset is arbitrary. These students “don’t get charged anything” for the privilege of being employees of the university, doing much of the actual teaching that goes on in classrooms. They’re asking to be compensated more in align with that paradigm. And… Read more »
Their own Union doesn’t support the strike why should anyone else? The Union the last go around negotiated a no strike clause, I am sure the UC’s gave up something to get that. Why should the UC’s renegotiate when the TAs are proving they can’t live up to the contract they agreed to? If you can’t live up to the contract you signed no one should ever trust you to sign another one. The TAs need to live up to the Union agreed upon contract, if they fail to do this they are in violation and should be fired.
I don’t get this logic. These are my peers but this is not the way to get change. F*ck you pay us? Really? Will anyone respond nicely to that kind of talk? Failed liberal policies (which many UC profs preach) have facilitated the high cost of living. Extreme environmental policies have made it near impossible to build more housing which is why we pay so much rent in the first place. Then their solution is to demand more money (only for themselves btw while EVERYONE is struggling with high costs) while keeping the failed policies in place? Why don’t people… Read more »
Exactly, they’re disrespectful! I had to work at UCSC during the beginning of the strike. I’ve seen how the students at UCSC were acting! They were jumping on cars, blocking the public road way with themselves and barb wire, taunting police and anyone who wanted to enter the campus. There’s also video of them spitting on police officers who were only on campus because of their actions. I was told last week they interrupted mid terms! So much for caring about the undergrads! They tried to blow up the situation to push their agenda TBH that’s sick! I wish the… Read more »