Dec 2, 2022
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from South Africa
seen from Thailand
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from Germany
seen from Türkiye
seen from Spain
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from Germany
seen from Singapore
seen from Türkiye
seen from Thailand
seen from Poland
seen from United States
Just FYI: 48,000 grad students, post-doctoral fellows, and academic researchers across the 10 UC campuses are currently on strike for fair bargaining practices, marking the largest academic strike in history.
This strike is incredibly important for setting a precedent. I have seen first hand how overworked and underfunded my colleagues are; they are the backbone of the university and the academic system as a whole. They deserve better, and I am in full support of their efforts
Images caption: UCSF grad students take to the literal streets, hang banners from buildings, at the Mission Bay Campus
Image source: Personal images (I am supporting my colleagues by maintaining experiments in the lab)
Images caption: Berkeley students rush the Chancellor’s office and president’s office in Oakland during week three of the UAW strike
Image source: my partner, unnamed for privacy, on strike at UC Berkeley
Spread the word, and be sure to donate to the cause if you can
Are you a publishing industry professional, bookseller, library worker, artist, teacher, book blogger, or a reader? Do you support the HarperCollins workers striking for a fair contract? Sign the Strike Solidarity Open Letter here!
The HCP Union's linktree (below) had more information, including graphics like the one in this post you can share.
Building a more equitable, ethical, and inclusive workplace at HarperCollins.
Cheyenne, Mathematics PhD Student, UC Santa Cruz
"I'm an older student, I came back in my thirties. I'm also a single mom. I love what I do - my research, my colleagues, my faculty, my program - but I can't afford to be here. My rent is two hundred dollars more than my paycheck, and I need to have a place where my son can live comfortably and have the space and privacy any teenager deserves. I often skip meals so my son can eat three times a day. I worry about him being able to pursue an academic dream if he wants to, as wealth inequality grows larger and larger across the country. I love our Santa Cruz picket community, I have seen so many wonderful ways of coming together in joy and defiance and anger and hope. Lifting up graduate students here can be transformative for all of academia."
Nearly 4K academic student employees, postdocs, academic researchers, supportive faculty, undergrads, and community members marched through the streets of Berkeley to the UC president’s mansion yesterday in support of a fair contract!
Harlem, NYC: Day 2 of Graduate Student Workers’ strike at Columbia University, April 25, 2018.
“Graduate Student Workers at Columbia, affiliated with UAW, are on a week-long strike! There are picket lines on the campus. They just held a rally at the University Library.”
Photos and report by Christian Cobb
author: La Kata E.K.
UAW strike
February 21, 2023 - FINAL UPDATE
For a chronological timeline of the entire Harper strike, click here.
Today was the Harper Union’s first day back at their desks.
Collective action works.
The union tweeted out a full summation of their agreement with HarperCollins here, but the highlights are as follows:
Minimum wage increase, immediately to $47,500 with a ramp-up to $50,000 by 2025.
A $1,500 bonus for all union members, presumably to partially offset the costs of being left without a paycheck by their company since November
Guaranteed annual raises for all marked satisfactory or above
Union letter and membership card included in new-hire packets
Joint Labor/Management committee to meet monthly
Time on aforementioned committee and/or all company-sponsored DEI activities will be seen as and paid as work time (as opposed to the free labor junior employees were expected to contribute previously)
Juneteenth and Presidents’ Day added as permanent paid holidays (as opposed to, you know, a one-time publicity stunt a la June 2020)
Return-to-office not mandated for union employees until July 1 (currently, Harper expects employees to live and work in NYC)
The above are just the guaranteed, contractually mandated changes that will be implemented at Harper. This does not include the ripple effects that have already begun in the rest of the industry.
Collective action works.