UC strike enters third week as finals approach

The largest academic strike in United States history is now entering its third week. Nearly 48,000 grad students are participating in these strikes with a couple thousand students at UC San Diego taking part.

The top demand of teaching assistants, researchers and grad students is higher pay to afford housing. Some students say the strikes are affecting learning and research.

[BassStoke]

When exactly was it that higher education became indentured servitude?

[DrachonaTheWolf]

Don't worry, everyone. The governor has assured me that things are going great in California.

[Cryozebra]

I don't think anyone here in the comments actually understands what's going on (partially the video's fault for not being very clear). Graduate students and non-tenure teaching faculty are striking cause they are essentially being paid under the legal California minimum wage due to the nature of 'stipended' work. They are hardly asking for an unreasonable change

[randyscrafts]

That's ok. Shut the damn college down. They already took and take far too much money.

[gailcarey]

Go to community college, or better yet, trade school!

[Popeslash]

Don't cross the picket line! Working class solidarity, brothers and sisters!

[capitalplasma]

Worker solidarity! Keep fighting for fair pay! Stop the exploitation by these wealthy institutions!

[kds]

They're probably getting a better education from the TAs

[Cassandra-..-]

No mention of the meager grad student stipends and the number of hours a grad student is expected to work in the lab? One must live much below the poverty level to get a PhD. Do you not see what is wrong with that?

[georgehugh]

Grad students serving as TA's currently make $24, 000, but with no real care where the money is going to come from (raise undergrad tuition? higher taxes?), they _"are seeking a minimum annual salary of $54, 000 and increased child-care benefits."_ [WaPo] *Apparently the universities just have to **_FIND_** $1.44 billion....*

[keithgabbard]

I wonder why none of the students are asking "Why is my useless degree so expensive"?

[georgehugh]

I heard that thanks to the research efforts of the grad students in the Botanical Dept, the UC Universities now have _money growing on trees!_ Surely there's no excuse not to give the United Auto Workers double or triple what they earn now....

[markcombs]

Probably the best thing that could happen to the students, give them time away from the nutty professors.

[mayomonkey]

How much is a "Gender Studies" degree worth, anyway? Maybe they deserve a lot less!

[alcoholic]

Like, um, literally, we need basically like more money or something because it’s like literally hard or something.

[Johnverse]

Youngsters, can you see "TRUTH" yet ??
From the city of Angels to the city of Saint Francis/Francisco & all in between, I'm ready to invoke all the Saint/San city names to destroy California. Saint Andrew/Andrés would be the first one !!!

[snowench]

If this gets approved, all that will happen is an increase in tuition - AGAIN. Let’s abolish public service unions, as the major conflict of interest that they are, and watch the price of tuition go down. I’ll even go a step further - abolish public unions, and watch the price of everything go down.

SEIU is the biggest culprit of all. I got laid off twice from a secure government job BECAUSE of SEIU’s lay-off policy of first-in, first-out...even over discipline-actioned workers. Oh, and then SEIU billed me for dues the next month. They got an earful from me.

[phukobama]

Stop payments to illegal immigrants and fund the grad students.