2 Strikes | Roundup #11
UC academic workers and The New School adjunct faculty take to the streets
From Lauren Kaori Gurley at the Washington Post, the largest strike of the year is happening on the University of California campuses:
In the largest work stoppage of the year, thousands of academic workers at the University of California system went on strike Monday over the university system’s bargaining practices with their union, which is trying to secure higher wages.
Some 48,000 teaching assistants, postdocs, researchers and graders on the front lines of teaching and research at California’s prestigious public university system are seeking a minimum annual salary of $54,000 and increased child-care benefits, saying they do not earn enough to live in the state. They also accuse the university of not bargaining in good faith with their union, the United Auto Workers.
The article continues on to detail more about the current salaries for these academic workers:
The United Auto Workers [which represents the academic workers] is asking UC leadership for a minimum salary of $54,000 for all graduate students and a minimum salary of $70,000 for all postdocs, as well as annual cost-of-living adjustments in contract negotiations. Many graduate students earn $20,000 a year or just above, and postdocs earn a minimum of $55,631. The union has also requested $2,000 a month in child-care reimbursements, expanded paid parental leave and public transit passes for its members.
Anyone who lives in California knows that $20,000 is not at all enough to survive paying rent on a UC campus and with California prices. And $55,000 is a tight salary, especially for highly skilled researchers who may still be paying off student loans. If we want to be encouraging higher education, advanced skills, and research — this is not the way to do it.
Meanwhile, on the other coast, the New York Times reports about another campus strike, this time from adjunct professors:
Part-time faculty members at the New School, a historically progressive university that includes the Parsons School of Design, walked out en masse on Wednesday to protest pay and working conditions…
Adjunct professors at the university have not received a raise in four years, and as a result, their real earnings have not kept up with inflation and are down 18 percent from 2018, according to A.C.T.-U.A.W. Local 7902, the union organizing the strike. The union said that while the university had offered a 3.5 percent wage increase, it was not sufficient given record inflation in recent months.
One of the key things in both of these strikes is the average raise given to workers. You’ll hear the strikers refer to this term in their wage contract as a cost of living adjustment (COLA). For The New School adjuncts, as the article pointed out, there was no COLA since 2018, so in inflation-adjusted terms, these professors saw their wages decreased over the last four years.
The UC system, on the other hand, gave student researchers a flat 3% wage increase in 2021. Was that much better than The New School? At first glance, it may seem generous. Inflation typically hovers around 2%, so a flat 3% increase would effectively give workers a 1% annual raise on inflation-adjusted terms!
But looking a little closer, California living costs for these students had been increasing much faster than inflation, eating away at that potential raise.1 This chart shows how rental costs in California metro areas (blue, purple, green), a proxy for local cost of living, increased much faster than national inflation (red):
The result of all this is that the vast majority of the 48,000 UC academic workers are rent-burdened, paying more than 30% of their pre-tax income in rent. A similar situation applies to The New School adjuncts, who have to live in a city with skyrocketing rents. A broad set of research has shown that when tenants are rent-burdened there are significant adverse effects for mental and physical health, like a statistically significant increase in depression, skipped healthcare appointments, and unsanitary housing conditions.
The UC academic workers proposed to make annual adjustments of at least 7%, and potentially higher if local rent prices exceed that rate. That would defend against both national inflation and local cost of living increases. The UC system’s counter-proposal will give students an initial bump in salaries in the first year, but resume 3% annual increases in years afterward. The gap between the two proposals gets larger over time:
On the New School side, part-time teachers get paid on an hourly basis — and only for the hours they spend teaching students inside a classroom. This ignores the significant amount of work time that adjunct professors spend preparing material, grading essays, and ever increasing administrative work they do outside class. (This is not so dissimilar from the issue of unpaid work time for gig workers).
The part-time teachers union is proposing both “per contact hour” pay increases as well as a stipend to cover work done outside each lecture, seminar, or studio class. The pay increases would effectively account for inflation and the higher cost of living New York City, although the COLA for these adjuncts (equating to 3.3% annually if measured over a 10 year period) would be a bit smaller than that for the UC academic workers (at least 7%).
Meanwhile, the latest counter-proposal from The New School administration doesn’t include any compensation for outside hours, and has a small increase in the hourly rate over the next 5 years. As a result, the New School — which has stood out for its progressive values since its founding — is proposing to hold back the pay for an adjunct teaching a typical seminar or lecture by around 11% relative to the union proposal.
What do you think about these contracts? Are they fair? Do the union proposals not go far enough? Curious to read your thoughts in the comments section below.
For more information on how to support these unions, check out the Fair UC Now site here, and the Linktree for the union representing The New School part time faculty here (see the section entitled “How to help”)
News and Perspectives
Noah Smith: Without increase in inequality since 1980, median income would be $47,841 instead of $37,522
Bloomberg Law: 11 states considering raising wages for tipped workers in 2023
Eater SF: The Largest South Indian Restaurant Chain in the World Just Paid Bay Area Workers $2.2 Million
LaborLab: Only 18% of Anti-Union Consultants Filed Required Disclosures on Time
Law Street: DC Announces $6.5M Settlement with Beverage Delivery Service Drizly Over Unpaid Driver Tips and Taxes
NYT: New York City, Once a Minimum Wage Leader, Now Lags Behind
Institute of Labor Economics: How firms adjust when they cannot hire foreigners for low-skill work
NLRB: General Counsel Issues Memo on Unlawful Electronic Surveillance and Automated Management Practices (See also Data and Society’s Explainer on this topic)
Bureau of Labor Statistics: Evidence for the “Great Resignation”
Harvard Business Review: Are You Being Quiet Fired?
Harvard Business Review: When — and How — to Say No to Extra Work
Linkedin: Remote Workers Fear Layoffs More than In-Person Workers
During the pandemic, national inflation was rising faster than rental costs in California metro areas, although inflation is expected to slow down as the Fed increases interest rates. In addition, YIMBY policies in California may result in rental price growth coming back down, although it is unclear how fast it will come down (new housing takes time to build, and there are still plenty of zoning restrictions preventing housing developments)