UAW 2865

UAW Local 2865 - 19,000 Student workers strong

Wages and fair pay

UAW 2865 MEMBERS WIN TUITION AND HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUM REMISSION FOR GRAD INSTRUCTORS IN BERKELEY’S ONLINE PUBLIC HEALTH PROGRAM

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Berkeley, CA – UAW 2865, the union that represents more than 19,000 Academic Student Employees at the University of California, announced today that all Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) teaching in the Online or On-Campus Masters of Public Health (OOMPH) program at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health will receive tuition remission and health care coverage beginning this Fall term. UC Berkeley had previously denied those benefits to these GSIs, even though they are specifically guaranteed in the Collective Bargaining Agreement signed by UAW 2865 and UC.

“This victory shows that when we stand together and fight, we win,” said Andrea Jacobo, a current OOMPH GSI and UAW 2865 steward for the Public Health department. “This agreement requires UC Berkeley to appoint the online public health program GSIs at percentages that ensure they all receive tuition, health insurance premium remission, and childcare benefits moving forward.” 

Last fall, the OOMPH program appointed some GSIs at 25% Full-Time Equivalent without providing health insurance premium remission and tuition remission, as required by the UAW 2865 contract. The GSIs were told that because the courses they teach are 8 weeks long, they must teach 2 online courses consecutively, or seek extra positions outside OOMPH, to qualify for these benefits. OOMPH GSIs are responsible for a comparable amount of content and grading as on-campus GSIs, but they were not provided with equal benefits.

UAW 2865 argued this practice constituted a violation of the union contract, and that the denial of benefits created an environment where GSIs feel pressure to take on extra work without equal benefits. A delegation of Public Health union members delivered a petition signed by nearly 150 graduate students to SPH Dean Michael Lu demanding that the school provide all OOMPH GSIs with tuition remission and health insurance premium remission and to ensure that all other GSIs are given the same benefits going forward.

Yesterday, both parties signed an agreement securing those rights.

“This victory is a credit to the strength and resolve of union members and allies who mobilized to right this wrong,” said Angela-Maithy Nguyen, a current OOMPH GSI involved in the union grievance filing. “We are proud to have corrected this issue and so that hardworking GSIs can access the tuition remission and health care benefits we need.”

Covid-19 Crisis Makes One Thing Clear: We Need a COLA Now More Than Ever

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By Tom Hintze, UAW 2865 Northern Vice President

The Covid-19 crisis that is destabilizing our world is having a dramatic impact on workers at the University of California. At every campus, UC – our state’s largest employer – is now making fast and unilateral changes to how and where we work to limit the spread of the pandemic. 

For academic workers, this comes in the midst of another crisis. Grappling with sky-high housing costs, workers across the UC system have gone on wildcat strikes to demand a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). Recent announcements that we should work from home to avoid Covid-19 further underline the need for a COLA now, which will help ensure that housing-insecure workers can properly self-isolate to contain the spread of the disease. With the University moving in-person classes online, our living conditions are becoming our students’ learning conditions. Workers expected to teach classes from home must have access to the space and technology required to do so. 

Management’s reorganization of our working conditions has underlined the desperate need for a contractually-guaranteed COLA to help us cope with the ongoing housing crisis. According to federal data, grad workers at every single UC campus are now rent burdened – meaning we spend at least 30% of our take-home pay on rent. Many of us pay up to 60% of our pay (Teaching Assistants take home about $2,400 a month for nine months of the year) to afford a room in a shared apartment, or in many cases, a shared room. 

As grad workers who perform the majority of teaching and grading work at UC, we rely on our classroom and office space to teach sections, tutor students, grade and complete research. If we are expected to work from our homes, it isn’t appropriate to pay us so little that we must do so from a shared dorm room (the rents on which UC raised last year). For student parents, school cancellations mean caring for children at home, which places an additional burden on them. 

The good news is that UC has already agreed to bargain over changes in the workplace due to Covid-19. And, after long negotiations between the union and the university, UC has agreed to reinstate health care coverage for all 80+ Santa Cruz workers who were fired due to their participation in the wildcat strike. But this public health emergency underlines the already precarious situation grad workers are in, and the urgent need for UC to negotiate a COLA, an on-campus rent freeze, resources for working at home, and accomodations and trainings for all workers at UC. In other words, UC needs to ensure that we can live with dignity and do our work effectively.

Recently our union, which represents more than 19,000 academic workers across UC, scheduled an Unfair Labor Practices Strike Authorization Vote in reaction to UC’s unilateral changes to working conditions, refusal to bargain directly with the union over COLA, and unjust discipline of wildcat strikers. If the vote is successful, our members will have democratically decided to authorize a state-wide strike, which would affect every campus and every department at UC. Members will ultimately decide what to do and when in this fast-changing situation, and the University must address all the issues we face as workers and community members at UC. 

It is my hope that UC agrees to bargain a meaningful, contractually-binding Cost of Living Adjustment, among the other things that I and my colleagues need to make it through this crisis. Until then, we will continue to organize in opposition to a system that puts our dignity and health at risk. 

Members Overwhelmingly Ratify COLA4All Bargaining Demands

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This past week, UAW 2865 members voted overwhelmingly to ratify the COLA4All Bargaining Demands with 97% voting yes. Here are the full results:

CampusVoting YesVoting NoTotal Member Votes Cast% Voting Yes
Berkeley6511967097%
Davis325833398%
Irvine250325399%
Los Angeles5101052098%
Merced4314498%
Riverside204621097%
San Diego357936698%
Santa Barbara3821940195%
Santa Cruz261826997%
Statewide Total298383306697%

11 CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLYMEMBERS, LED BY ASM. MARK STONE, ENCOURAGE NAPOLITANO TO BARGAIN WITH UAW 2865

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Santa Cruz – Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Monterey), whose district includes UC Santa Cruz, was joined by ten of his colleagues today in sending a letter to University of California President Janet Napolitano encouraging “the University to reopen the collective bargaining agreement and begin negotiating with UAW Local 2865 so that common ground can be reached on compensation for Academic Student Employees.” You can read the full letter here. 

“We are grateful to have the support of Assemblymember Stone as we demand that UC bargain with us,” said Kavitha Iyengar, President of UAW Local 2865 and a graduate worker at UC Berkeley’s School of Law. “And we are hugely thankful to Senators Durazo, Allen and Leyva, and Assemblymembers Gonzalez, Bonta, Rodriguez, Muratsuchi, Aguiar-Curry, Kalra and Wicks for lending their voices to this effort. Workers spending upwards of 60% of their income on rent is not sustainable. And at this point, graduate workers at every single UC campus are rent burdened, according to data released by the federal government. We are asking UC to sit down and bargain a Cost of Living Adjustment with us so that we can reach a contractual, equitable solution that supports the workers who contribute so much to UC’s educational and research mission. UC simply wouldn’t run without us. And it’s time for the University to step up.”  

In the face of a changing economy and a growing statewide housing crisis, the Union has repeatedly demanded that UC come to the table to discuss the terms of employment for Academic Student Employees and bargain for a much-needed COLA. And while UC administrators deliberately bypass the union and ignore their obligation to bargain with the chosen representative of the workers, frustration has mounted. 

A wildcat strike focused on securing a COLA has spread from Santa Cruz to other campuses. And while the wildcat strike has not been sanctioned by the union, there is widespread empathy with their cause. Graduate Student workers at UC earn just $2,400 a month for nine months of the year, before taxes. All the while, UC has continued to unilaterally raise rents on campus. 

This week, based on the University’s unlawful conduct, the union’s Bargaining Team unanimously voted to move forward with an Unfair Labor Practice strike authorization vote, which all union members will have the opportunity to participate in. 

Nationally, academic workers unions have been under attack as the Supreme Court codified the Janus decision and Donald Trump’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board look to weaken academic workers’ rights. But on the ground, union membership levels are rising, and a wave of activism is sweeping universities across the country. The UAW now represents more than 75,000 academic workers, and unions have been formed at Harvard, Columbia, Boston College and others. 

UAW 2865 STATEMENT ON 54 TERMINATED SANTA CRUZ WORKERS

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“Today we stand 100% in solidarity with those who were terminated at Santa Cruz,” said Kavitha Iyengar, President of UAW Local 2865, the union that represents more than 19,000 academic workers across the University of California system, including those who were fired. “We are shocked by UC’s callousness, and by the violence that so many protesters experienced as they peacefully made the case for a cost of living increase. 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.

“But UC’s decision does not deter thousands of academic workers across the state who will continue to fight to reduce their rent burden. The union will keep demanding that UC come to the table and bargain to provide a cost of living adjustment for 19,000 ASEs. And we will keep organizing, keep holding actions, and keep speaking up until all of us are paid fairly for our work.”


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