FAQ: Graduate Student Strikers

UC Santa Cruz graduate students employed as academic student employees are currently represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and under a contract that was ratified in 2018. The University of California’s collective bargaining agreement governs the terms and conditions of employment for readers, tutors, teaching assistants, and graduate student instructors. This contract, including its rights and obligations, applies if a graduate student has an active appointment in one of these positions.

Under the terms of that agreement, academic student employees cannot engage in any strikes, work stoppages, interruptions of work, or any activity that directly or indirectly interferes with university operations while a contract is in place. Withholding grades is direct interference with the university’s operations and a violation of the collective bargaining agreement. When a group of employees represented by a union defies that union and stages an unauthorized strike, it is known as a "wildcat strike."

The grade strike is unsanctioned by their union and the striking graduate students are working outside of the union in making demands of the University. Labor law prohibits direct dealing between employees and their employer, which excludes employees’ lawfully recognized union.

Our graduate students play a vital role in supporting our educational mission and their work is deeply valued on our campus. While we cannot and will not take action to open a negotiated systemwide union contract, as the demonstrators have demanded, we’ve met four times with graduate student leaders to help understand the challenges they face.

No, the local UC Santa Cruz UAW representative is not authorized to negotiate on behalf of all graduate students in the collective bargaining process or for employees who are not members of UAW. The University of California negotiated a systemwide contract with UAW 2865, a contract which spans the UC campuses across the state. To discuss terms and conditions of employment, our campus must work through and with the systemwide UAW 2865 organization; this is true even if our campus did not vote to ratify the agreement. Additionally, this contract applies to readers, tutors, teaching assistants and graduate student instructors — not all graduate students.

Our team for the most part has been unable to replicate this number. However, using information and methodology cited in early wildcat communications we believe that it may have been calculated as follows:

The difference between the average rental price of a 2 and 3 bedroom apartment in Santa Cruz relative to Riverside was calculated to be $1412/month based on Zillow rental data for the last 18 months.

Unfortunately, we believe that a final step--dividing by 2.5 (the average number of people occupying the home) to arrive at a per person average of $565/month was missed.

No. The letters they received are a result of not submitting grades by the February 2 deadline. The dismissal is based on the continued refusal to submit grades from February 2 on.

UCSC considers academic standing, employment record and student conduct when evaluating employment performance.

Graduate students, including international graduate students, who are not eligible to work as teaching assistants can continue their studies at UC Santa Cruz.

Generally, international graduate students must maintain full-time enrollment as a requirement for their immigration status. Appointment to a teaching assistant position is not a requirement for maintaining this status.

The campus must confirm that a student has maintained their enrollment no later than 30 days from the beginning of the quarter.