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UC Santa Cruz fires 54 grad students who were striking for higher pay
- karlakush 7y agoThis was inevitable. There are very few people in this country who could keep their jobs after refusing to work for more than two months. If these guys couldn't afford to live in Santa Cruz, they shouldn't have chosen to go to grad school in Santa Cruz. And I know UC-Santa Cruz has never been thought of as an elite school, but still it's quite embarrassing for the university as a whole that they admitted people this dumb into their post-graduate programs.
- daly 7y agoI lived on 54 cent pancakes covered in free butter and honey, 9 cents per can baked beans (turns out I don't like baked beans, I like good sauce which this was not), and candy bars out of a broken and never fixed candy machine. I don't recommend it. I weighed 110 pounds by the time I left. All of my money went to dorm housing (paid to the school). Later when I was a researcher I found out that the Provost takes 55% of grant money "for overhead like printer paper". If there is money involved, there are plenty of plenty of people willing to "take their cut" before it ever gets to the researcher or student. If you can't afford to pay grad students enough to keep body and soul together, don't open the grad student slots.
- nabla9 7y agoSimpsons grad student sketch is different kind of funny for different people. For most people it's funny because it's exaggeration, for others it's funny because it's so close to reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqrCoyVK80I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqrCoyVK80I --- On more serious note, grad student working for next to nothing serves similar function as unpaid internships in companies and politics. Some positions are designed to help young people coming from wealthy families without explicitly shutting anyone out. If you have trust fund, career in politics, academia or high profile law and financial firms is much easier.
- butterthebuddha 7y ago> If you have trust fund, career in politics, academia or high profile law and financial firms is much easier. I'm having trouble parsing that
- miscPerson 7y ago“If you have a trust fund, then a career in fields such as politics, academia, law, or finance is much easier.”
- rdtsc 7y agoOnly kids from wealthy families can afford to move to say DC or NY and spend a year there on an unpaid internship. So that becomes a selection criteria to exclude those from poor and middle classes from advancing in those domains.
- skrtskrt 7y agoThe same is true for entry-level media jobs. Paying $40-$50k in NYC... you can be sure kids without generational wealth & parents financial assistance choose other paths.
- oh_sigh 7y agoIt must be awful to have to settle for the 50th percentile income in an area as a brand new worker.
- wutbrodo 7y agoThis is definitely untrue. There are plenty of young people willing to save roughly no money for the early years of their 20s by trying to make it in the big city in a flashy career. I know several who don't get any financial support from their parents (and certainly don't have generational wealth). The most you can say is that people who have parents that _require_ financial support aren't able to take this path, but that's a significantly smaller group.
- 7y ago
- sjg007 7y agoI took out student loans in addition to my stipend just to survive.
- gist 7y agoWhy do you (and others) think that education and academia is somehow special and not the same as, say, acting (or any career) where people regularly earn no money and work bad 2nd jobs just to survive and do something they love or want as a career? In a free market system nobody is telling you to choose that career and a University and (typically) a non-profit doesn't have any particular incentive to not act in their own self interest in order to self perpetuate themselves. Also I am sure the janitor at the University is paid decently and loves to work there. Reason is there are not as many people lined up for that job and basic economics takes over.
- chrisseaton 7y agoSociety needs researchers - it doesn’t need actors.
- thebean11 7y agoThat's a pretty simplistic view of society. Do we need not need novels or music either? Let's drink nothing but soylent and devote 80 hours per week to our STEM careers
- chrisseaton 7y agoPeople literally die without research into things like drugs. They don’t die without movies.
- nico_h 7y agothere are a lot of anecdotes about how a song or a book or a movie changed someone's life.
- craftinator 7y agoThere are a lot of data about how many people have been saved through research. Anecdotes are data with n=1. Not a great comparison.
- pkaye 7y agoIn college, a professor recommended me for an academic award from industry. It was $1000. So I go to the yearly awards dinner and a month later got a check for $800. Apparently the university takes a 20% as administrative cost!
- thaumasiotes 7y agohttp://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1005 http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1005
- ganoushoreilly 7y agoThat's actually low! Most of the Universities we've explored research grants with wanted 45-65% overhead for the university, then another 10-15 for Research organization, with the remainder sorted between the researchers / company. We found it was actually just cheaper to pay for the research ourselves and hire the students directly for part time work than go through the grant process. I sat on a couple school boards for a while, all that was ever discussed was fund raising and how we should be contributing more. Very little focus on education. Sadly it's turned me off spending time with Schools and just targeting students / researchers directly.
- gjs278 7y agoit’s not actually low. you’re both just being scammed.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago> and just targeting students / researchers directly. Sounds like a win-win, yeah? So, sorta happy ending...
- ganoushoreilly 7y agoTo a large degree yes, but a lot of the work would have fared better with a larger pool of people to work on the problem. We have to be more selective in candidates and in turn, we spend more money out of pocket vs wider spread from the grant pool of cash. The original purpose of grants was to spur technology growth and acceleration, now they're just one more notch on the ole' funding universities piece. We need an overhaul on bloat in state schools at a minimum, then we're good. The other issue is patent / design ownership arguments, but that's for another day.
- datashow 7y agoThere must be some misunderstanding. The provost doesn't take the overhead, the university does, which is a common practice.
- lovich 7y agoI didn't realize that "common" was a synonym for "good" or "desirable"
- datashow 7y agoThere is a reason for this common practice. Do researchers pay office spaces, internet, electricity, utilities, etc...? No. So there is overhead.
- asdff 7y agoExpected that there is some overhead to keep lights on, sure. But should lab A who brought in a 1 million dollar grant pay 500k in overhead for internet and electricity while lab B in the next bay in the same room brought in a 50k grant and only needs to pay 25k? Overhead is baked into salary budgeting too, you might budget 60k for your technician in your grant, knowing they'd receive 40k, the 20k allegedly covering the employees various benefits (which said employee will find are withheld from their 40k paychecks anyway).
- ivalm 7y agoThis is not actually where overhead really goes to. A lot of overhead simply pays for departments that don't bring in money (eg humanities, some social sciences) and I think that's fine too. But let's not say that an experimental lab with ~10 people and ~2000sqft that pays >$1mm a year in overhead spends it on "office space, internet, electricity, utilities..." because that is disingenuous (btw those numbers reflect the reality of the lab i got my phd in). Most overhead comes from expensive experimental labs (hard science + engineering + medicine).
- PeterStuer 7y agoCan you provide more detail? Usually grants/projects etc in research in Europe explicitly budget "overheads" as a separate budget line. The size ove the overhead varies between the different funding instruments, but are usually between 20% and 100% of the direct costs (mostly wages). Universities will have internal regimes that distribute the overheads between the central administration, for covering such things as office space, heating, shared services etc., and the research group in which the research takes place for covering computing, office supplies, local admin, travels, publication consumables etc. So for example a 2 year project that has 120K allocated in direct cost salary, with a 75% overhead regime in a university with a 25% central overhead take would have an overall budget of 210K of which 120K would end up payed as salary to the researchers, 52.5K taken by central administration, and 37.5K taken by the research group. While technically you could argue paying researchers more would also net the university more money, asthe overheads are calculated as a % on direct costs, in reality this does not hold as funding for research is very finite and funding agencies would not approve paying higher project grants. Both universities and large businesses have been successfully lobbying for years for higher overhead % regimes in grant instruments, and since the budget for funding research has not changed in line with these evolutions, defaco shifting the windfalls of research grants from the researcher's wages to the administrations.
- jariel 7y agoJust 1.5 generations ago, University was for those who could afford it. Many grad student programs today are in that category. This category of people competing for jobs otherwise filled by individuals with wealth will always exist, there's no 'solution' to this problem. I think it's best to not take those jobs and to find a cost-efficient way to get through grad school. If people did this, the system would change. There are many ways to access less expensive education, you don't need to be on the coast of California. It's obviously 'too expensive' and that's a real and fundamental issue in life.
- Melting_Harps 7y ago> Just 1.5 generations ago, University was for those who could afford it. Not the UC/CSU systems, which is what this topic is about; they were primarily little to no cost universities 1.5 generation ago--depending on your residence. It wasn't until the administration bloat and race to capture as much foreign students/funding became the name of the game that it has become this cesspool. Hell, in my freshman and sophomore year as an in-state student costs were sub 10k a year, it wasn't until the bubble got so big in 2007 (just before the financial crisis) that it became the sordid bacchanal, cash grab you see now. It mirrored the Banking Industry so well in my opinion, and just like banking it never corrected and just doubled down and it too has created a Trillion+ bubble and perpetual servitude and permanent underclass(es) ripe for exploitation. And just so its clear, the CSU/UC system is only the most affordable in the US if you are not from CA; if you are, especially if you are multi-generational, because of the high tax levels in CA its probably on-par with some Ivy leagues and upper level tech schools. I won't dispute your analysis on University as whole, as I have much more to say on the matter, but I agree with your conclusion. For most University (on ROI at least), especially if not in a lucartive field of STEM, it's just not worth it if you're technically inclined and have an disciplined autodidactic streak. But many seem to be looking for an 'experience' more than they are an actual useful education in a chosen discipline, which is why these predatory practices not only proceed to this day, but excel as they do, hence why so many are willing to accept such awful loans to do so--I can't help but think of the way many hapless souls got suckered into sub-prime mortgages.
- athriren 7y ago1.5 generations ago the UC system was nearly free to attend.
- hedora 7y agoHopefully the strike will now spread to other UC campuses. The back story here is that United Auto Workers (the UC grad students’ union) negotiated an unacceptable contract, and despite many months of pushback from the students, and despite UCSC voting against it, the union ratified it anyway (including a no-strike clause). Also, the faculty of UCSC voted against the firings.
- chrisseaton 7y ago> United Auto Workers (the UC grad students’ union) Why are they represented by such a completely unrelated union?
- hedora 7y agoThere’s no clear path to replacing UAW. They somehow got in control of union representation for the entire UC system. The US is a closed shop country, so it is illegal for students to simply cancel their membership in UAW and join a graduate student workers union. I’m not familiar enough with labor law to know the exact proceedue, but presumably students would need to mount a state-wide campaign to vote UAW out (if it is even possible). Even then, I don’t know if campuses would be allowed to negotiate separately or not.
- chrisseaton 7y agoWow being a graduate student is closed-shop in the US?! That’s crazy I never knew that. How does that square with academic and political freedom? A student who researches union abuse must join and fund a union!
- singlow 7y agoCalifornia, not the US in general.
- electricslpnsld 7y agoDepends on the state and the public/private designation of the university. There is also the (mostly unanswered in the courts) question of whether private university graduate students are primarily employees or students. Read up on the kerfuffles at NYU and Columbia University to see how gnarly this all gets.
- acdha 7y agoI feel like these stories should mention the compensation for the people attacking graduate students for demanding a living wage. Someone making well into 6 figures really doesn’t have a good basis for summarily dismissing that need: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2018/university-of-california/janet-napolitano/ https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2018/university-o...
- nostrebored 7y agoWhy should they expect a living wage for sub-demand fields of research? Why do my choices to achieve financial stability override my experience prior to that? When you're from a poor family the decisions that these striking students are making are befuddling.
- throwqwerty 7y agobecause they perform a service. they teach classes. that's literally what they were withholding - grades for classes they TA. so there is plenty of demand for that service. it has nothing to do with the labor market after they graduate. god some people just fall all over themselves to be smug.
- nostrebored 7y agoIf you want to have an actual conversation, I'm happy to. If not, let me know so I don't waste my time. They do perform a service, sometimes teaching classes, sometimes grading papers, sometimes assisting with office hours. They get paid $2400/mo, putting them above median salary for full-time TAs. Nobody is forcing them to go to graduate school in California and accept this job. This isn't something that they were coerced into. The fact of the matter is that research is still a demand driven field. This is why you'll see stipends and grants to assist students in higher demand fields, like computer science. When I was in school a few years ago, everyone knew that if they were not receiving a grant, they were going to be paying for their education. This isn't a surprise, and if they are willing to make the decision to fund their further education, that is something they should be able to do.
- fallingfrog 7y agoHopefully this wakes people up to the fact that not only are universities not the hotbeds of leftism that they are made out to be, but they are in fact run by the same kinds of right wing plutocrats that run everything else.
- asdff 7y agoSomething tells me that the people who believe the former don't care very much about the latter, perhaps even cheering it on.
- legolas2412 7y agoJust like they have the conspiracy theories of left wing coastal elites, you have the conspiracy theory of right wing plutocrats. I'm pretty sure many University employees vote democrat and oppose grad student salary increments.
- antiterra 7y agoI got filled with righteous internet rage when I read the headline, but then I read the article. The particular strike was implemented by withholding fall grades, which seems to unnecessarily burden students who are to be buried under crushing debt, no? Also, they are apparently unionized and this strike was against the extant agreements. The consequences of not getting a grade can affect a student’s entire career and ability to sustain themselves financially.
- datashow 7y agoSo the correct title should be: California university fired 54 grad students who withheld students' final grades Is firing sufficient for punishment?
- asdff 7y agoOnly they fired them because they were arrested for sitting in the road, not for failing to grade midterms.
- aaomidi 7y agoIt's like protests is meant to cause a disruption. I really have a terrible place in my heart for people who criticize protests because it caused a disruption. That's the point of a protest. I'm very happy for you that you've never felt the need to take these drastic steps, but they're protesting real issues and real problems they're having. The grades are ultimately the universities problem
- oh_sigh 7y agoIf me and my flat earth friends shut down the highway you need to take to work in order to protest the teaching of sphereism in schools, you wouldn't complain?
- refurb 7y agoProtesting by making the lives harder for your fellow students is just a dumb strategy. It doesn't hurt the administration, it hurts the students. Now the students are backing the administration!
- freyir 7y agoUC president Janet Napolitano was caught on a hot mic a few years back saying, “We don’t have to listen to this crap”, when grad students protested for living wages. Sounds like not much has changed. Of course, she lives for free in the UC presidential mansion, and had the school spend $620,000 to renovate it before she moved in, so she’s all set.
- dehrmann 7y ago> she lives for free in the UC presidential mansion That's probably a fringe benefit, so at least she's taxed on its value.
- csomar 7y agoI think this is a wake-up call for these grad students of how the real world works. > Instead of firing TAs who are standing up for a decent standard of living for themselves, UC must sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a cost of living increase. Sitting at the negotiations table where you hold none of the cards means you are not getting the pay increase you are asking for. Striking is for workers who know they hold some cards and the other party is not listening. Striking without any card means you are going to get fired; which just happened here.
- csb6 7y agoI also think it is a good introduction to the real world, but for a different reason: it shows that workers are treated as disposable goods that employers can and will throw away whenever they become too much of a hassle or ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization. Universities are no different to businesses in this respect; the success of colleges depends on the grunt work of grad students and professors not on the tenure track. Universities will openly deny sane living conditions to these people, and fire them for asking for enough to pay their rents. The way workers in this country are treated is god-awful, and I'm saddened by the people in this thread who are cheering the firing of these students.
- csomar 7y ago> The way workers in this country are treated is god-awful, and I'm saddened by the people in this thread who are cheering the firing of these students. I'm not cheering their firing. I'm just explaining why their strike did not work out as they wished. > ask for compensation that reflects the value they bring to the organization That's not how it works in the real world. You get paid by market rate; which means if there is someone else accepting a pay cut, you'll get fired and replaced. > Universities are no different to businesses in this respect Universities are a competitive business, too; and students pay high tuition fees. If the universities are out-competed, they can lose business/students. It's turtles all the way down.
- csb6 7y ago
- dang 7y agoA related concurrent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22455680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22455680
- lfmunoz4 7y agoRead the article because I was curious what major the grad students had, but was disappointed in the journalist not detailing this fact. In my mind it does make a difference. I doubt the students were in math for example.
- legolas2412 7y agoWhy? Even computer science grad students are paid the same
- gtfratteus 7y agoAs they should have done much sooner. If you refuse to do your job, you don't deserve to have that job. Plain and simple.
- macinjosh 7y agoJust because you exist does not mean you deserve success. This strain of leftism is essentially just jealousy and entitlement. I learned life isn't fair as a child it really isn't that hard of concept to grasp. That gave me the motivation to think about what I wanted out of life and to work towards that goal. I didn't get a loan from parents (they barely made ends meet growing up). I didn't go to college or a code camp. I worked delivering papers, then as a janitor ($5.65/hr), then a courier at a hospital before I got my first coding job. Instead of going out with friend in high school I stayed home and taught myself how to code. Now I have everything I want in life. I am happy. It just took actual grit and work. There is, quite literally, endless opportunity in this country if you have the grit to find your own slice. But, because it is not dropped in some people's laps they cry foul. Our modern society, which was created through capitalism and the defeat of socialism and communism, has lifted billions out of poverty, has made previously deadly diseases a thing of the past, and the list goes on. Instead of learning from our past successes these people throw a childish fit and refuse to work while demanding more pay. It is asinine. If money is important to you find a line of work that pays what you want. Grad school is not that. Edit: I forgot to mention that these kids withheld students' grades from last semester as leverage. Those students have nothing to do with their compensation but are suffering due to their entitlement. The union for these kids didn't even authorize the strike.
- throwqwerty 7y agoI read a tweet on Reddit: if you think you made it through hard times okay but think it's okay for other people to go through the same hard times then you in fact did not make it through okay.
- legolas2412 7y ago> There is, quite literally, endless opportunity in this country if you have the grit to find your own slice. But, because it is not dropped in some people's laps they cry foul. Not available to so many of the international grad students. You cancelled slavery but you do need your subset of oppressed workers. Just finished my PhD and I advise everyone to stay away from this hellhole. I should have dropped out 3 years ago though. Terrible life choice.
- 7y ago
- valid4life 7y agoI'm an undergrad at UCSC right now and have found the entire strike to be more detrimental to their cause. They've lost so much undergrad support after disrupting a STEM midterm and shutting down campus causing us to miss the classes we have paid for. I even lost my grades last quarter as my TA was fired ( of the 54 ) and he has refused to hand them over post firing. What it has done to the undergraduates is a little ridiculous and I felt for them in the beginning, but the strike has made me be a supporter against them unfortunately.
- awinder 7y agoWhat happened with your grades in those classes? I read the university systems release and this article and couldn’t glean the details. Is that course’s grades still just up in the air?
- valid4life 7y agoFor many classes, grades were withheld and then released as the TAs did not want to lose their jobs. My TA was not one of them. For a class that needs tests graded, this isn't as much of an issue, but in my case, the class is a Distributed Systems course and the projects we built are quite extensive. My professor reached out to me and other high scorers in the course requesting us to recreate the grading infrastructure as he believes our true grades will never be received from our fired TA. I took the course as a letter grade class, but currently it is marked as a Pass/No Pass which conveniently is not allowed for major courses. It will be a fun time talking to the advising people on campus.
- saagarjha 7y ago> My professor reached out to me and other high scorers in the course requesting us to recreate the grading infrastructure as he believes our true grades will never be received from our fired TA. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's asking you to work on grading infrastructure?
- valid4life 7y ago
- pvaldes 7y ago> they refused to turn in final fall grades Some students take a debt for having the opportunity of achieving a grade. If they study, learn, and pass, they should be allowed to participate in the yet narrow window of time of hiring that follows after the formative period. Flashing your grade can be necessary before just start talking with your potential employer. Any random delay could make they lose a year and create a damage in their finances, curricula and lifes. They just put themselves in a impossible situation. Damaging the lifes of your students, maybe forever, is not how anybody should do a strike and directly disqualifies you as a teacher. Is not much different when you are a scientist. Strike is a luxury that some sectors really can't afford.
- mathattack 7y agoAs long as there are plenty of other grad students to fill the spots behind them, of course they will get fired. It’s easier for UCSC to find backfills than for these students to find new schools. Even if the school is sympathetic to the cause, it’s easier for the school to call the bluff on 54 grad students this year than 540 next year.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoThe most disappointing aspect of this is how many people are locked out from these opportunities because they don't have or come from the family wealth to support living in a place like Santa Cruz while studying full time and TA'ing at such low wages. Something's gotta give, and only people with the means to do so can take the financial hit.
- ajross 7y agoIt's... more complicated than that. There is an existing union that represents these people which has negotiated an existing collective bargaining agreement. This strike wasn't authorized. Now... maybe the union cut a bad deal, maybe their representatives aren't faithfully honoring their commitment, maybe there is literal corruption involved. But what is not true is that these workers were unrepresented at the salary negotiation. Breaking the deal like this makes negotiating the next contract harder, not easier.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoGraduate programs are usually filled with a completely new set of students after 2-3 years. The likelihood of students taking similar actions in future years will have no bearing on the actions taken today by those currently enrolled. Having a union doesn't fundamentally change the un-affordability of accepting below-market wages for skilled labor in a high cost of living area. They might be getting a better deal than they would have otherwise, but clearly there's a disconnect between the UC system, the union, and the students on the premise of today's arrangement and its long term viability.
- ajross 7y agoObviously no, strikes and labor actions can't change the microeconomics. But regardless of whether or not the wages are sufficient, and whether the agreement is just or not, it's an agreement. Breaking it only hurts things for future students, it doesn't help. Consider the union sitting down to the next contract, how do they negotiate successfully if UCSC doesn't believe their members will honor the agreement?
- papeda 7y agoThere are about 1800 UCSC graduate students [1]. From this 2014-15 UCSC budget report [2] there is a very near 2:1 masters:phd graduation ratio. Assuming there are 2 years of masters students and 6 of PhD at any one time, that makes PhD students 60% of “graduate students”. Let’s make this easy by saying 1000 PhD students (if anything I imagine it’s way less than this — as I understand, monetizing masters students has been an increasing trend in American universities). The UCSC grad student union says average pay for the year is about 22k [3] (edit: this appears to be a minimum, not average, wage). The strikers want 1.4k more per month. With the current 9 month payment system, that’s about 13k more per PhD student per year. So 1k*13k = 13mil overall to put this problem to bed. That seems...surprisingly little? Aggravating a big chunk of your on-the-ground workers and attracting all this bad press doesn’t seem worth it. Meanwhile, there appear to be a whole lot of UCSC administrators making comfortable six figures [4]. I get that a lot of people on HN probably see the current low wages as a natural function of supply and demand in different academic disciplines. But heck, just looking at this from the point of view of the university, which is allocating resources to fight this, the calculus is odd. [1] https://www.ucsc.edu/about/facts-figures.html https://www.ucsc.edu/about/facts-figures.html [2] https://planning.ucsc.edu/budget/reports-overviews/pdfs-images/profile2015.pdf https://planning.ucsc.edu/budget/reports-overviews/pdfs-imag... [3] https://gsa.ucsc.edu/things_to_know/funding https://gsa.ucsc.edu/things_to_know/funding [4] https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/ https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
- option 7y ago"lot of people on HN probably see the current low wages as a natural function of supply and demand" - as a former grad student at one of UC's campuses - this is not as simple as you put it. A lot of grad students are international students (like I was) and they simply can't work anywhere else due to their visa restrictions.
- russellendicott 7y agoSounds a lot like a mild version of indentured servitude. Cheap labor for the university.
- 7y ago
- pmoriarty 7y agoSome context: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxe45b/graduate-student-strikes-are-spreading-in-california https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxe45b/graduate-student-s...
- ab_testing 7y agoThe university knows that there is no dearth of graduate students coming into the US. These international grad students will work at whatever wages the university offers - simply for a chance to work in the US on OPT and a chance to get into the H1 lottery eventually.
- gyrgtyn 7y agoA bunch of people that make 500K try to explain why people that make 28K shouldn't make 45K. In a town where rent is 20K.
- anonsivalley652 7y agoThe university needs a couple shiny new buildings and the employees need a fancy retreat in Aspen, so grad students need to be happy with crumbs. Poe's law disclaimer: sarcasm, a miraculous new technology that makes words have absolutely identical meanings in a completely humorless manner.
- cycrutchfield 7y agoI survived in grad school on much less than 28k in a very high cost of living city. If anything, graduate student compensation is ridiculously high these days. I don't see anything but money-grubbing here.
- gyrgtyn 7y agowhat year?
- readhn 7y agoeven 5-10 years ago rents were much lower. unless you just graduated in 2019 this is irrelevant as rents have in many cases doubled since then in many HCOL cities. i "survived" in HCOL city then but even then it was not as expensive as it is today.
- ausbah 7y agoso just because you had it bad, other people shouldn't have it better?
- GhostVII 7y agoSounds like some unionized grad students decided to go on strike on their own, without the unions approval. Firing doesn't seem unreasonable to me in that case, and it certainly isn't "union busting" as Bernie Sanders said in the article, given that the school has an agreement with the union. If you never could get fired for striking, it would allow employees to hold the school hostage indefinitely while making unreasonable demands (not that the demands in this case were necessarily unreasonable, just that I don't think firing strikers is inherently bad).
- ausbah 7y agoit's hard to say that with a straight face when the union doesn't represent their interests
- thanatosmin 7y agoI see a lot of discussion about the consequences of TAs withholding grades. This situation is a consequence of poor management at UCSC. Every other university I'm familiar with makes faculty responsible for submitting grades. It's inconceivable to me why TAs would be responsible for grades. TAs should be teaching assistants, not adjunct faculty. Edit: I read "assigning grades" to mean assigning the final grades for the course, not grading homework and exams. I'm pretty sure this is the responsibilities the TAs had, because UCLA sent out a memo to all the faculty explaining that senate faculty are responsible for grades here.
- vga805 7y agoStrange. every university im familiar with has grad students teaching courses, not just TAing. i did it myself.
- thanatosmin 7y agoMaybe it's more common than I thought... I've only ever seen TAs teaching discussion sections.
- asdff 7y agoDepends on the course. For a large 300 person bio lecture, it will be the professor lecturing and the TA leading a quiz/homework section with like 30 people. For smaller classes with only 30 people, it's probably going to be a TA lecturing.
- michaericalribo 7y agoThe operative word here is ‘should be.’ In practice, at the state school where I did my doctorate, more than half of undergrad courses are taught by grad students...academia is a broken system that doesn’t work very well for anyone involved in it Edit: this was the case in my department, a STEM subject required for graduation in multiple unrelated majors
- jseliger 7y ago
- sitkack 7y agoIs that even legal?
- umanwizard 7y agoYes, it’s (obviously) legal to fire people who arbitrarily refuse to do the job they signed up for. How could society possibly function otherwise?
- jostmey 7y agoMore grad students should refuse to turn in grades. After all, it is the grad students doing the grading and work. What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? You find a job that pays the same but requires fewer hours of work?
- umanwizard 7y agoThe worst thing that’s going to happen is you’re fired and (unless you have some other source of income) forced to leave your PhD program, permanently ending your hopes of an academic career. Not sure how you can reasonably downplay that...
- asdff 7y agoNot to mention, having to move because there are no jobs in Santa Cruz and no apartments you can afford without said job, and having to make this move happen to some unknown place that might have a job with your zero dollars saved up from your TA job. Homelessness for a spell is a real possibility.
- detaro 7y agoFor a subset of students: You get deported, because you're on a visa that doesn't exist without your university affiliation.
- hindsightbias 7y agoSome think the status quo is the way forward and such a progressive state cannot slide backwards - as California goes, so goes America. Nixon, Reagan, Jarvis and a lot of very conservative Democrats controlled this state for generations. Democrats have largely left their old base behind to neoliberal economics, deregulation (Carter) and financial market weaponization (Clinton). The radicals from the left aren’t from CA anymore, and my guess is a future that is a bit more Nixony but wearing Allbirds and sipping a Grapefruit IPA.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI think the Democrats are not the party of the working class anymore but the party of well paid specialists and middle management upwards. I would call them party of the top 10%. They have no ability to talk to the lowest ranks anymore.
- thatiscool 7y agoYou can have free speech, but it is an authoritarian system.
- newshorts 7y agoI understand the grad students were in the wrong and they were not being realistic about their leverage... But is it really that awful to ask for a decent living wage? When did we become so feudal?
- TrumpMyGuns 7y agoGood, we don't need anymore idiots.
- TrumpMyGuns 7y agoYep, they are cry babies. Most of HN are these folks, though ;)
- rdlecler1 7y agoWe’re putting more grad students through the system than the economy is willing to absorb. Is higher wages going to help or hurt this problem? (PhD here with first hand experience of that opportunity cost)
- blacklion 7y agoTo be honest, I read only ~75% of comments, but I'm very surprised that [almost?] everybody discuss postgrad's salaries and conflict with university and is it «free market» of employment as TAs and scuh/. Why doesn't anybody discuss housing situation & regulations?! Why these students protest against university and not City's government?! Why is it strike and not revolt agains housing regulations!? Why is here no discussion about «free market» of housing?! I'm not live in USA, but looks like there is A LOT of demand for new housing and offer is limited by totally out-of-market reasons! And everybody discuss salaries and their fairness, not new housing and fairness of regulations! For me, outsider, it is «obvious» that housing regulations, not university, are to blame and protest against! Also, I'm shocked, than room mates are offered as viable solution! I was raised in USSR, where one of the main sins of government (in top-10 for sure) was failure to provide personal housing for everybody. I was raised in shared apartments (multiple bedrooms, single kitchen, toilet and bathroom). Of course, room mates is theoretically better, because theoretically you could choose room mates, and in USSR it was impossible to choice so-tenants, as these rooms and apartments were distributed by officials without consulting with people. But anyway, it is mind-boggling for me, that it is suggested as good solution for adults peoples, who effectively work for one of the best education institution in richest country in the world, to live in shared apartments. Of course, it must be allowed, if friends want to live together, but it must be decision based on convenience, not as only solution to have ANY housing!
- bradlys 7y agoI doubt this will be noticed but - the solution isn't higher pay. It's building more housing. There should be a lot of dedicated housing for students. Grad students will constantly need to be negotiating for higher wages because the rent will continue to increase. All the students are advocating for is transfer of wealth from the university to landlords. :/
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- xtat 7y agoI truly can not imagine trying to pay rent within 200mi of sfbay on an academic paycheck - get out before it implodes
- humble_engineer 7y agoIn later news, I'm currently reading a paper on pubic hair grooming of American women post 1970s