[Gradstudents] Union Meeting

[Heather Killeen]

Dear SOE Graduate Students,

Please find the message below from UCR PhD student regarding a union meeting.

-Heather

________________________________

Our graduate student union is having a meeting today at 5pm at the stairs in front of the Arts Building.
You are strong encouraged to join. We will discuss calling a strike vote if necessary to escalate the campaign for a fair contract.

Academic Student Employees, Student Researchers, and Academic Researchers have been negotiating for months, and Postdocs almost a year. Still, UC is not making significant movement at the table or offering anything close to the living wages we deserve, particularly regarding our current demand of $4,500/month for graduate workers and $70,000/year for postdocs.


DEMANDS
- Increased wages: Right now, our wages have effectively decreased in the last ten years. In addition to demanding a $54,000/year minimum salary, the union is demanding a 10% increase yearly. See the attachment for current salary.
- Decreasing rent burden: The Inland Empire has had higher rent hikes <https://www.ocregister.com/2021/05/07/inland-empire-starts-2021-with-nations-highest-rent-increases/> than anywhere else in the country. The union is demanding wages be at least 3.33 times the highest median rent in any campus locality.
- Appointment Notification and Appointment Security: Demands to include year-long funding guarantees which include summer funding
- Childcare subsidy: $2000/month for a choice between UC-affiliated or non-UC-affiliated childcare program
- Health insurance: The union is demanding expanded coverage to include more comprehensive mental healthcare and full-spectrum trans and reproductive healthcare (including for depending).
- Fee remission: Demands for full tuition and fees to be covered for entirety of graduate school
- Anti-bullying and anti-harassment: More comprehensive mechanisms to address grievances, independent investigations, and harassment cases

You can read more about the 2022 bargaining proposals here<https://uaw2865.org/2022-bargaining-campaign/2022-bargaining-proposals/>. If you want to track each specific bargaining proposal, you can do so here<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DKxtUSiKsNNtn8EFWkLgz6ZCXJ-slnh9stfNhGWS_hY/edit#gid=0>.

Because the UC system has been charged with violating terms of the collective bargaining agreement twenty times so far<https://www.fairucnow.org/ulp/> - all unfair labor practices - it is a possibility (if not a likelihood) that a strike will be voted on. This would be a historic event as we’ve never had as many people working together to mobilize for better quality working conditions at the UC. Right now, over 48,000 graduate students, student employees, academic researchers, and postdocs are united across three unions.

It’s time for all of us on our campus to come together and make an important decision about this contract campaign. Are we going to need to go on strike to win what we need?

In solidarity
Justin Huft
Sociology

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