UC Workers Strike in Protest of Unfair Labor Practices

Photos of Berkeley campus protests, credit: @ianshootsphotos on IG

Members of the UC Berkeley community continue to strike in protest of unfair labor practices gathering in Sproul Plaza, famous since the beginning of the Free Speech Movement, and marching around campus. The UC system relies heavily on graduate student instructors to teach over 200,000 undergraduates. Postdoctoral students and academic researchers are also represented in the strike by UAW, United Auto Workers.

Demonstrators have been forming picket lines across the university system that includes 10 campuses and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The University of California Student Association is encouraging undergraduate students to support the strike and some professors have canceled courses in solidarity.

Workers want higher wages, improved parental leave, and child care support. Many protest signs mentioned housing costs and a large "Reduce Rent Burden" banner on the Berkeley campus brought on cheers from demonstrators. It is not unusual for housing to take 35% or even more of a worker's pay.

Strikers say they are fighting for a UC where first-generation scholars do not have to go into extreme debt so that highly-paid administrators can live in publicly-funded mansions. They want a working environment in which workers are free from harassment and discrimination, and access to sustainable and affordable transportation options.

University of California president Michael Drake stated, from a gathering on the UCSF Mission Bay campus, that the university’s offers are “generous and fair” and exceed the support available at other top public research universities.