UC-Santa Cruz caves, rehires some graduate students after strike

After five months, the University of California-Santa Cruz and fired graduate student workers reached an agreement after the university fired seventy workers who went on strike. Of the seventy, only forty-one were rehired by the university, reported Inside Higher Ed.

In December 2019, graduate student teaching assistants and instructors did not turn in grades for the fall semester for their students as a part of a “wildcat strike.” The wildcat strike meant that it was an unauthorized strike, as the graduate students are represented by the United Auto Workers labor union. The university responded and said if the workers kept withholding the fall grades, they would be fired. Three months later in March, the university fired the striking students.

The strike spread to other University of California campuses, which emphasized the desire for universities to increase stipend or cost-of-living adjustments because the amounts doled out to graduate student workers did not keep up with rising rent costs.

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