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Melissa Harris-Perry: For two weeks, 48,000 University of California graduate student employees, postdocs, and researchers have been on strike. It's the largest higher education strike in US history and potentially, the largest labor strike of the year, and it's showing no signs of ending.

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The workers are demanding what they say are necessary improvements to their contracts.

Will: We want enough of a wage increase to eliminate rent burden, increasing childcare benefits. We're also looking at things like better protections for international workers. Hi, my name is Will. I am a graduate student researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and I'm a rank-and-file member of SRU-UAW currently on strike at UC, San Diego.

Melissa Harris-Perry: The Takeaway spoke with Will late last week and Will noted he's not speaking on behalf of the UAW, which is the union under which these workers are organized, but he and his fellow researchers have been on the front lines of the strike and of the work that makes the university what it is.

Will: I grow a species of seaweed, very small samples and cultures that we can use for experiments.

Melissa Harris-Perry: In addition to being researchers doing this kind of core work, 40% of those on strike are also enrolled directly teaching or grading undergraduate students. In this way, the workers are also the foundation of UC's world-class research and undergraduate education, but--

Will: There are people that work in my building, for example, that live in their cars, folks who have been driven out of academia. There are people with children who are trying to do graduate work and have to balance their responsibilities of being a parent with going to school and also working.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Just to be clear, the average monthly salary for graduate teaching assistants is about $2,000, and that's in an estate where the average rent back in August was nearly $2,700 a month for a one-bedroom place. Now graduate teaching assistants, postdocs, and researchers like Will are the backbone of this strike.

Will: Once the strike began, it was quite remarkable. We would gather every morning, very early sometimes. People would bring food and supplies, bullhorns, green vests, and walkie-talkies, but also coffee and music, and put ourselves in sometimes quite risky positions to stand up for what was right. I saw people who wouldn't describe themselves as particularly brave, really put themselves on the line for themselves and their coworkers to fight for what they all deserve. It's inspiring to think of ourselves as part of a longer legacy of these struggles and that we will leave a legacy behind us for those who come afterwards.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: Early Monday, I talked with Nanette Asimov, who is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. What are the demands of the union? What are they asking for, maybe, particularly in terms of wage increases?

Nanette Asimov: These 19,000 teaching assistants, tutors, graduate student instructors, they are the ones who teach and grade papers, and they lead these small group discussions and undergraduates really depend on them. They are making about $24,000 a year. They're asking for a $30,000 increase to $54,000. They're largely part-time workers, but they're asking for a wage they say will just allow them to pay their rent and buy their food and live in an expensive state like California.

Then you have about three groups of researchers. If you think that these researchers-- This is the University of California, they depend on research. They're a research institution. These guys bring in $5 billion in grant money. That's what they brought in last year. They make the University of California the number one recipient of research funding in the country, so they have a little leverage here.

There's 17,000 student researchers, and they're also asking for a raise, but unlike the tutors and teaching assistants, they're not asking for the raises to be tied to housing costs. They just really want job security. They want contracts that are long enough so that they are not constantly disruptive. Many of those researchers are on visas. There's about two-thirds of them come from out of the country, and their visas depend on job stability. They're currently not being provided with very long contracts, meaning that they constantly have to leave the country and go out and renew their visas. That's a key thing for them.

Melissa Harris-Perry: The process of being unionized. We heard from will about coming out of a tradition and leaving something for a future tradition, but I think even the notion that these workers who we have often thought of as professional workers or intellectual workers, that they would be unionized, I think might be surprising for some folks. What do we know about the history or the strength of University of California academic Unions?

Nanette Asimov: This union, which oddly is represented by the United Auto Workers, some years ago, I think it might have been within the last decade, the Union of United Auto Workers someone had the idea to bring in student workers into their midst and suddenly they grew in power and strength and leverage. The University of California opposed the unionization but slowly more and more student workers joined in this union. Until last year, this system-wide union grew by a third when it brought in 17,000 student researchers and suddenly they had this power to demand something that had not been provided ever.

In fact, the problems that the student workers at the University of California are describing are not unique to UC, this is an issue everywhere for student employees. Even you could think of that student-athletes have the same issue where you work and work for the university, you bring in money, you are the backbone of academia and research. Or in the case of student-athletes, you bring in money and advertising, but you're not paid very much.

The university's position is that, look, we're giving you the degree, we're giving an education that's compensation. The student workers are saying, no, we are having trouble buying food. As somebody said it, they're staying on sofas, they're living in cars, they're camping in woods, they're glamping in offices as someone told me. They're saying, we just need to be paid a living wage and that's what this is about.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, on Thanksgiving, the union to which these academic workers belong, the UAW tweeted that University of California had offered that researcher packet that you were talking about. A package that includes expanding some paid family leave to eight weeks. including some childcare benefits, a commitment to public transit passes. Again, that was on Thanksgiving. Has anything moved forward either with the postdoc bargaining unit or with any of the units?

Nanette Asimov: The postdocs are going to examine that package, that offer for them. There's 7,000 of them. That bargaining unit is going to look at it today. What I'm told is that the bargaining unit is happy with that in the sense that postdocs are on track to have the highest academic salary scale in the country. Now they want that for the other bargaining units, but I think there is that issue of job security that is still an issue with the postdocs. They're going to make, I think, a counteroffer to try and get longer positions. It's possible that one of these units, like the postdocs, could settle and peel off from the rest.

Today, what they're planning are marches on president's office and chancellor's offices because they're saying now that they're in week three, there's still a long way to go. Really another bit of leverage that they have is that we're entering exam time. It's finals time and these are people who grade the papers and prepare the students for their exams. A lot of the classes have just shut down in terms of offering new material. They're doing reviews. Students are a little bit upset even though they support the workers. Things are still in freeze frame here.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's precisely what I was going to ask. I'm heading into my last week of classes. I know my students are getting to prepare for their final papers and exams. Now we do not have graduate students in my department. I do all my own grading, but this is definitely a key time in the semester. Certainly, parents who are paying tuition or students who are themselves tuition-paying units if they don't get an opportunity to get their full curriculum for several weeks, that's a real issue. I'm wondering if that increases the bargaining strength.

Nanette Asimov: I think it really does. As one student told me, I'm paying not to go to class right now, and this is somebody who supports the union. It's a real dilemma for everybody because they want the workers to get what they say they deserved. At the same time, "Hey, wait a minute, I'm not learning anything. I have to prepare for that class next semester and I'm not getting the preparation I need this semester because my student instructors are out on strike and with no end in sight, as he said."

It's a dilemma. One professor said was joking with his students saying, you have to grade each other. This student told me that seems to be the most serious option right now. They really are going to have us grade each other. I think It's a weird period.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I just want to drive home one more point around who these workers are. What this labor is and the point that back in March, UCLA had posted a job for an assistant adjunct professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry. The requirements included that someone would have a PhD in either chemistry, biochemistry, or equivalent, and a significant and strong record in teaching chemistry or biochemistry at the college level. Yet, the ad it says this. This is the, "Applicants must understand there will be no compensation for this position, no salary." How common or radically uncommon is something like that.

Nanette Asimov: You see acknowledge that that was a mistake. I can't speak to why they put that out. Maybe just because it feels sometimes people aren't being paid. They withdrew that and they acknowledged that that was not what they actually could offer or would offer. Nevertheless, you really do have people who are severely rent-burdened by the federal definition, able to pay, I guess the rent takes up half of their income, that is just untenable.

That's why as these students were saying, these workers were saying some people are living in their cars. It's not that they're being paid nothing, but they're being paid not as much as they can. This is a state where a gallon of gas averages $6, so it can feel like you're being paid nothing sometimes.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yes. Nanette Asimov is a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. Nanette, thank you so much for joining us.

Nanette Asimov: It's a pleasure.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I do want to note here, the University of California says it's been in daily negotiations with the union since November 14th, and the University of California system says they've reached tentative agreements on 95 issues, but remain a part on key issues related to tying wages and pay increases to housing costs and tuition remission for non-resident international students. The university says it is committed to achieving a fair and reasonable contract that honors the important contributions these bargaining unit members make towards UC's mission of education research and providing quality patient care.

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