Dec 6, 2022
The largest strike of the year in the U.S. and the largest strike in higher education ever is in its fourth week. The battle is playing out at the University of California over fair compensation for graduate students, teaching assistants and postdoctoral workers, who do much of the research and teaching on campus. Tim Cain of the University of Georgia joins William Brangham to discuss.
Read the Full Transcript
Judy Woodruff:
The largest strike of the year in the U.S. and the largest strike in higher education ever is in its fourth week in California.
This battle is playing out at the University of California. And at its core is a fight over compensation for graduate students, teaching assistants and postdoctoral workers, who do much of the research and teaching on campus.
William Brangham looks at the stakes of this showdown.
William Brangham:
Judy, since mid-November, more than 48,000 of these academic workers across 10 campuses in the U.C. System have left the classroom. They have taken to the streets and the airwaves, advocating for higher wages, improved housing, and more generous leave for parents and caregivers.
This group does not include tenured professors. The university system reached a tentative agreement with some workers last week, but the strike continues, as most of the workers are saying they will stay out for as long as it takes until their demands are met.
Tim Cain is watching all of this closely. He is an associate professor of higher education at the University of Georgia, as well as associate editor of "The Review of Higher Education."
Tim Cain, very nice to have you on the "NewsHour."
Could you just lay out the stakes here? Who is it that is striking, and what is it that they're demanding?
Tim Cain, University of Georgia: Sure. It's nice to be here.
There are four groups of workers at the University of California who are on strike currently. As you mentioned, two of the groups have reached tentative agreements. Those are about to go — those are being voted upon right now.
The four groups are graduate student researchers, graduate student teaching assistants and graders, postdoctoral workers, and academic researchers. So, the academic researchers are full-time employees, but not tenure line faculty members.
So a central issue of the strike, of course, is salaries, which the unions argue are woefully low, considering inflation and the rising cost of living in California, and especially the cost of housing near U.C. campuses.
The majority of U.C. graduate students and postdocs are rent-burdened, paying more than half — more than a third of their salary on housing per month. Many pay more than half.
Again, on salaries, the unions have been negotiating for significant increases in childcare benefits and parental leave, for longer appointments to provide stability, for benefits to support eco-friendly transit, and a respectful work environment.
William Brangham:
Can you give us a sense, for people who are not that familiar with higher education and how it's structured and how work is divided, who are these individuals within that ecosystem?
Tim Cain:
I think that's a really good point, an important question.
We have these pictures of tenured faculty members doing the teaching and research in higher education, but, in the modern era, that's a really small percentage. If we think of instructional workers, it's about 25 percent are on the tenure track.
That means 75 percent of the people doing the academic work, the research in the labs or in libraries or in archives and the teaching of undergraduate students, about 75 percent of those are not tenured faculty members. They're graduate students. They're people on short-term contracts. They're postdoctoral researchers.
They are among the most precarious of workers in higher education. Many times, they're hired on a semesterly or a yearly basis. And so one of the things that, for example, the postdoctoral workers have negotiated for in the tentative agreement is a two-year appointment at the beginning of their contract, rather than a one-year appointment, to provide some stability, so that the work can be improved, but also that they can have an understanding of what their living conditions will be for a short period.
William Brangham:
So, when these workers say to the university, look, we are an enormous and integral part of your educational mission, and we are the workers in this big structure of the university system, and we need better pay and better wages and better conditions, what has the university been saying in response?
Tim Cain:
The university has been saying that the conditions are good relative to other institutions. They have said that their current offer had — would put the graduate students, for example, on par with graduate students at some of the most elite private institutions, and that, for a public institution, that the conditions are quite good.
The university does recognize the real challenges around housing at U.C. institutions. And they argue that the housing that they provide is subsidized and 25 or so percent below what the common — what the larger market would bear. So they argue that, yes, the conditions are real, but that they are working to do everything they can to meet students and other academic workers' needs.
William Brangham:
As we said, this is a huge strike in California. Do you have a sense that this is going to resonate outside of the state?
Tim Cain:
I think so.
I think it's resonating in higher education specifically. Other institutions are looking to California to see what's going to happen. The other workers in higher education are looking to California to see how this is playing out and what their options are moving forward, whether they're unionized or might have an inkling inclination to do so.
I also think this is part of the larger sort of labor movement, labor unrest that we have seen in the United States in the past year-plus. Coming out of the works of COVID, we have certainly seen people discontented with their working conditions.
We have also seen a number of people discontented with the great disparities in salaries and in compensation and in working conditions between those who own and manage businesses and those who do a lot of the work in business.
So, right now, I think that we are in an important labor moment in the country's history, and that this is going to have an impact, both in higher education writ large and in the larger economy writ large.
William Brangham:
All right, Tim Cain at the University of Georgia, thank you so much for being here.
Tim Cain:
Thank you for having me.
The largest strike of the year in the U.S. and the largest strike in higher education ever is in its fourth week. The battle is playing out at the University of California over fair compensation for graduate students, teaching assistants and postdoctoral workers, who do much of the research and teaching on campus. Tim Cain of the University of Georgia joins William Brangham to discuss.
Read the Full Transcript
Judy Woodruff:
The largest strike of the year in the U.S. and the largest strike in higher education ever is in its fourth week in California.
This battle is playing out at the University of California. And at its core is a fight over compensation for graduate students, teaching assistants and postdoctoral workers, who do much of the research and teaching on campus.
William Brangham looks at the stakes of this showdown.
William Brangham:
Judy, since mid-November, more than 48,000 of these academic workers across 10 campuses in the U.C. System have left the classroom. They have taken to the streets and the airwaves, advocating for higher wages, improved housing, and more generous leave for parents and caregivers.
This group does not include tenured professors. The university system reached a tentative agreement with some workers last week, but the strike continues, as most of the workers are saying they will stay out for as long as it takes until their demands are met.
Tim Cain is watching all of this closely. He is an associate professor of higher education at the University of Georgia, as well as associate editor of "The Review of Higher Education."
Tim Cain, very nice to have you on the "NewsHour."
Could you just lay out the stakes here? Who is it that is striking, and what is it that they're demanding?
Tim Cain, University of Georgia: Sure. It's nice to be here.
There are four groups of workers at the University of California who are on strike currently. As you mentioned, two of the groups have reached tentative agreements. Those are about to go — those are being voted upon right now.
The four groups are graduate student researchers, graduate student teaching assistants and graders, postdoctoral workers, and academic researchers. So, the academic researchers are full-time employees, but not tenure line faculty members.
So a central issue of the strike, of course, is salaries, which the unions argue are woefully low, considering inflation and the rising cost of living in California, and especially the cost of housing near U.C. campuses.
The majority of U.C. graduate students and postdocs are rent-burdened, paying more than half — more than a third of their salary on housing per month. Many pay more than half.
Again, on salaries, the unions have been negotiating for significant increases in childcare benefits and parental leave, for longer appointments to provide stability, for benefits to support eco-friendly transit, and a respectful work environment.
William Brangham:
Can you give us a sense, for people who are not that familiar with higher education and how it's structured and how work is divided, who are these individuals within that ecosystem?
Tim Cain:
I think that's a really good point, an important question.
We have these pictures of tenured faculty members doing the teaching and research in higher education, but, in the modern era, that's a really small percentage. If we think of instructional workers, it's about 25 percent are on the tenure track.
That means 75 percent of the people doing the academic work, the research in the labs or in libraries or in archives and the teaching of undergraduate students, about 75 percent of those are not tenured faculty members. They're graduate students. They're people on short-term contracts. They're postdoctoral researchers.
They are among the most precarious of workers in higher education. Many times, they're hired on a semesterly or a yearly basis. And so one of the things that, for example, the postdoctoral workers have negotiated for in the tentative agreement is a two-year appointment at the beginning of their contract, rather than a one-year appointment, to provide some stability, so that the work can be improved, but also that they can have an understanding of what their living conditions will be for a short period.
William Brangham:
So, when these workers say to the university, look, we are an enormous and integral part of your educational mission, and we are the workers in this big structure of the university system, and we need better pay and better wages and better conditions, what has the university been saying in response?
Tim Cain:
The university has been saying that the conditions are good relative to other institutions. They have said that their current offer had — would put the graduate students, for example, on par with graduate students at some of the most elite private institutions, and that, for a public institution, that the conditions are quite good.
The university does recognize the real challenges around housing at U.C. institutions. And they argue that the housing that they provide is subsidized and 25 or so percent below what the common — what the larger market would bear. So they argue that, yes, the conditions are real, but that they are working to do everything they can to meet students and other academic workers' needs.
William Brangham:
As we said, this is a huge strike in California. Do you have a sense that this is going to resonate outside of the state?
Tim Cain:
I think so.
I think it's resonating in higher education specifically. Other institutions are looking to California to see what's going to happen. The other workers in higher education are looking to California to see how this is playing out and what their options are moving forward, whether they're unionized or might have an inkling inclination to do so.
I also think this is part of the larger sort of labor movement, labor unrest that we have seen in the United States in the past year-plus. Coming out of the works of COVID, we have certainly seen people discontented with their working conditions.
We have also seen a number of people discontented with the great disparities in salaries and in compensation and in working conditions between those who own and manage businesses and those who do a lot of the work in business.
So, right now, I think that we are in an important labor moment in the country's history, and that this is going to have an impact, both in higher education writ large and in the larger economy writ large.
William Brangham:
All right, Tim Cain at the University of Georgia, thank you so much for being here.
Tim Cain:
Thank you for having me.
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