University of California disrupted as 48,000 academic workers continue strike

EdSource

Emma Gallegos and Betty Marquez Rosales

November 15, 2022

Demanding better pay, more benefits and job security, 48,000 academic workers in the University of California system continued striking for a second day Tuesday, resulting in canceled classes and halted research.

Academic workers and their supporters formed picket lines across the university system that includes 10 campuses and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The strike is shuttering laboratories and canceling classes just ahead of midterm exams. Some disruptions were a result of teaching assistants’ absences, but some professors also canceled courses in solidarity with strikers.

The strike, which began Monday morning, involves postdoctoral scholars, academic student employees such as teaching assistants, graduate student researchers and academic researchers in California’s preeminent public research university system. Strikers teach many undergraduate classes and often lead discussion sections in courses.

“We teach the classes, grade the papers, and perform the cutting-edge research that has earned UC its reputation as the best public university in the world and the global leader of R1 research institutions,” said a statement from Student Researchers United. “In short, UC works because we do.”

University of California Student Association is encouraging undergraduate students to support the strike by joining the picket line, encouraging professors to cancel classes and donate to the strike fund.

“It looks like campus is completely shuttered at the moment, and it’s real proof of our power,” Tanzil Chowdhury, a bargaining team member with UAW and a graduate student research assistant at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, told UC Berkeley’s The Daily Californian.

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