UC Graduate Student Union Is Poised to Strike

A union composed of UC Berkeley graduate students is poised to launch a potentially crippling strike Tuesday after negotiations broke down with the university Thursday night on the status of teaching assistants and researchers.

Student instructors at UC Santa Cruz, who are also seeking recognition as employees, have authorized a strike in solidarity with the Berkeley group, and a sister group at UC San Diego has vowed to picket on campus for the duration of the walkouts.

A strike by Berkeley’s 1,100-member Assn. of Graduate Student Employees could shut down as many as 75% of undergraduate classes if non-union members join the action, school officials say. In all, nearly 3,500 students work as teaching assistants and researchers at the university.

“Our goal is to shut down the campus,” said Andy Cowell, a spokesman for the union, which is seeking collective bargaining status. “We really feel that we’re doing this for the quality of long-term education at UC.”

Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien pledged to “do everything possible” to keep the university functioning normally in the event of a strike, although professors could cancel classes in solidarity with the strikers.

“Everyone here is concerned about the well-being of our graduate students,” Tien said at a news conference Friday. “However, we cannot reach a resolution that is tantamount to collective bargaining.”

At stake, union members say, is the right of student instructors and researchers--who are squeezed by salary freezes and tuition increases during the UC system’s budget crisis--to be recognized as employees and have their benefits guaranteed. The school pays the students’ health insurance, offers a partial tuition waiver, and posts job descriptions and workload limits, among other benefits.

Without employee status, the student instructors, who earn $1,100 a month for part-time work, could lose their benefits without a voice in the decision.

The expected strike comes as $22 million in budget cuts force UC Berkeley to rethink its priorities in undergraduate education. As the university continues to cut faculty, the role of student instructors, who help teach most undergraduate classes on campus, becomes more crucial.

But granting the students employee status would violate state law, said Debra Harrington, manager of employee and labor relations for UC Berkeley.

In May, an appeals court ruled that the state’s Higher Education Employee Relations Act covered tutors and readers--who can teach without enrolling in the university--but not teaching assistants or researchers, who were defined as students. The state Supreme Court upheld the decision in August. As a result, only about 400 of Berkeley’s graduate student workers are legally defined as employees, with the right to collective bargaining.