UC Irvine Prepares for Strike by Assistants

With final exams looming, UC Irvine students face added stress this week: A strike is scheduled to start today by teaching assistants and other academic student workers who tutor them and grade their exams.

“I was hoping for review sessions or to go to office hours,” said Saman Shamtoob, a senior who is a majoring in philosophy and computer science. “What kind of feedback am I going to get now?”

Final grades may be late and course review sessions scrapped if the strike goes forward. It is expected to begin at 9 a.m. in front of the main administration building and at seven other University of California campuses. Some undergraduate students said the labor dispute was unlikely to affect them. Others said they will join study groups with classmates.

“I was planning on doing that anyway,” said Argel Hurtado, a sophomore from Hollister who had hoped to attend a review session for his sociology exam. “But this puts a lot more stress on me as a student.”

Officials of the Student Assn. of Graduate Employees announced Sunday that they intend to go on strike today at eight UC campuses, excluding the medical and health sciences school in San Francisco. UCI’s medical school also is not affected.

There are about 9,000 graduate student employees at UC schools; about 800 are at the Irvine campus.

A walk through campus showed no signs of labor strife Monday. But graduate students are pressuring university administrators to recognize the union they formed last year and negotiate pay rates, benefit packages and workloads.

“I know they’re nervous about it and that it will affect their education,” union spokeswoman Michelle Grisat said about the undergraduates. “We’ve tried so many other steps along the way but the UC [administration] has been so intransigent.

“We’re not going to be doing any work in this quarter unless we get recognized.”

Classes end Friday, and final exams will be held Dec. 7 to 11. Union spokespersons have not said what they intend to do if the strike is still in effect at the start of the new quarter, Jan. 4.

A number of students said they back the strike effort, despite the disruption.

“They’re not getting the respect and they’re doing all the work,” said Chris Canfield, a 19-year-old sophomore from Sunnyvale.

Others are less supportive. “I can see where they’re coming from because they do an awful lot of work,” said Michael Montrief, a sophomore from Huntington Beach, “but they also need teaching experience to get their PhD.”

That is why university officials at Irvine and the other UC campuses won’t recognize the union. Administrators say the graduate students are not employees and that their teaching jobs are part of their learning experience.

Doctoral candidates and other graduate students are paid a stipend for on-campus teaching, tutoring and research jobs so they can support themselves while writing their dissertations. Grisat, a philosophy graduate student, said she earns $13,500 for nine months of part-time work as a teaching assistant.

James Danziger, UCI’s dean of undergraduate education, said he doesn’t know how many graduate student employees will participate in the work stoppage.

“I’m hopeful that a very substantial [number] of graduate students will continue to fulfill their responsibilities,” he said.

John Rubio, a graduate teaching assistant in history, said he intends to cross the picket line.

“Being a T.A. at UCI is the best-paying and easiest job I’ve ever had,” said Rubio, who also has worked for community colleges and at Cal State Long Beach. “I would have to have a strong reason to walk out of my classroom. I have a responsibility to my students that transcends my financial concerns.”

But if picket lines are full, faculty members are prepared to do the job of their student assistants. Professors will hold discussion groups and grade final exams and papers, Danziger said. Staff members of the university’s Learning and Academic Resource Center, who usually work one on one with students in writing and math, also plan to hold group tutorials this week.

Faculty members also are being asked to identify students who must receive their final grades as soon as possible to apply to graduate school or for other academic reasons. Their marks will be recorded quickly, Danziger said.

“Finals time is always extremely stressful, and now there’s this,” he said. “My advice to students is to not get on either side of this and get on with the business of being successful at UC Irvine. We tell them to try to distance themselves from it and take care of their own needs.”

Times staff writer Elaine Gale contributed to this article.