UC Irvine academic workers join systemwide strike for better pay and benefits

Originally from New Jersey, Emily Parise looks forward to the annual cross-country trip home for Christmas.

This year, though, the UC Irvine PhD student in drama and theater who works as a teaching associate on campus shudders at the thought of a $600 round-trip flight.

Parise, who teaches her own theater history classes, writes her own lectures and does her own grading, still calls herself technically a teacher’s assistant in the UC system. She makes $21,000 a year.

“Just because we love what we do doesn’t mean that we should be living in poverty,� she said.

Parise and her partner Miranda Hajduk were two of many picketers Monday on the UC Irvine campus. About 48,000 academic workers in the UC system, represented by four different units, have gone on strike in what is being called the largest strike in higher education history.

A banner supporting 48,000 unionized academic workers who went on strike Monday hangs at the UCI campus on Monday morning.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Those on strike included teaching assistants, postdoctoral scholars, graduate student researchers, tutors and fellows. The workers want better pay and benefits but also items like child-care subsidies, better healthcare for dependents and more financial support for international scholars.

UCI academic workers gathered at three locations on campus starting at 8:30 a.m. Monday before meeting for a rally outside of Aldrich Hall in the midafternoon.

A group estimated at more than 1,000 then took a lap around the hall, where administration is housed on campus. They chanted phrases demanding fair contracts — “And if we don’t get it, shut it down� — and carried blue and white signs that read “UAW, On Strike, Unfair Labor Practice.�

Layne Hubbard, a post-doctoral fellow, addressed her classmates during the rally.

“UC prides itself on our diversity, yet without their compensation, the system fails us,� she said. “UC is a public institution, and our worker-to-CEO pay disparities are similar to Amazon. While the UC has given their chancellors a real wage increase, they propose to give us a real wage decrease.�

Two UCI students walk Monday morning in support of unionized academic workers across the University of California system.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Union leaders are asking for a $54,000 base salary, while UC has countered with a proposal that would offer a salary scale increase of 7% for the first year and 3% for subsequent years.

With inflation only recently dipping back below 8%, though, many graduate workers don’t feel like that’s nearly enough.

“The university is offering a pay cut and trying to say, ‘Look what good faith we are bargaining in with you,’� said Mark Gradoni, a teaching assistant in the UC Irvine history department and head steward for the UCI branch of UAW Local 2865, which represents more than 19,000 graduate students across the system.

Parise lives in university-owned housing, like many of her colleagues. She noted that the 3% raise each year is going directly back to the university in many cases, as rents go up.

“What they offered for childcare doesn’t even cover the cost of childcare at their own childcare facilities,� she said. “Even using their own metrics, we can’t afford to live on their campuses and raise our children on their campuses.�

UC Irvine students walk in support of an UC academic workers labor strike that started on Monday.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

The workers pledged to be back Tuesday morning and for as long as it takes to get a deal done. Gradoni said the union has called for a complete cessation of labor, which means TA-led discussion sections on campus have been canceled, and no grading is to be done by the assistants during this time.

Parise was saddened to cancel her class on Monday morning.

“All of my research is in Shakespeare, and today was the day we were supposed to start early modern drama and read ‘Hamlet,’� she said. “It’s my favorite play … And that’s the kind of passion that makes it easy for graduate students and post-doc workers to be exploited. We’re easy targets.�

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