Voices from the Picket Line

These are the stories of striking graduate students and undergraduates at the University of California, as they participate in the largest strike of academic workers in American history.

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Xian, Physics PhD Student, UC Riverside

"I am an 8th-year Ph.D. candidate in Physics at UCR. I switched to a new research group in my 5th year, so I extended my Ph.D program completion time. Currently, UC allows the NRST exemption for only 9 quarters after candidacy. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was temporarily extended to 12 quarters, but I still needed more time. I have been paying NRST myself every quarter since the winter of 2022. Before January 2022, I was hired as a 49% GSR. Per UC policy, the PI or the department needs to cover a student's tuition fully if the student is hired at 45% and above, but they didn't want to do this. So they hired me at 44% percent since January 2022, so I would still have to pay the NRST myself. That's $5,034 dollars a quarter. I still need two more quarters to graduate. NRST is a heavy financial burden for me. Many other international students also worry about it because a Ph.D. typically takes longer than the normative six year time frame. They will have to pay the NRST if they need to extend their time in their Ph.D. programs.

International students urgently need a proposal for an NRST waiver during the entire Ph.D. program. UC may want to transfer this burden to the PIs or the department like we are seeing now. Then senior students like me may be hired at a lower percentage or not be offered a TA position by the department so they won't have to pay our raised tuition, which makes the situation even worse. International students contribute the same state tax to California as others. NRST is discrimination against us. This is the conflict between international students and UC. The UC can't fool us and claim this conflict comes from individual PIs or the departments. The union's mediator might have said UC would not move on the NRST waiver. However, if the regents of UC can extend the waiver during the pandemic, they can extend it now. International students should vote NO to the tentative agreement, or we send a signal that international students are ready to give up on our core benefits.

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Abhimanyu, Political Science PhD Student, UC Irvine

Abhimanyu (Center) pictured with colleagues.

"Non-Resident Supplementary Tuition Fees are a discriminatory mechanism. They suppress the equitable recruitment and retention of international students who are seeking admission to and currently enrolled in grad programs within the UC system. In this powerful moment of collective organizing, I hope my colleagues remain in solidarity with us by voting no [on the current contract, which does not include provisions for NSRT fee remission] and continue to strike to secure a fair contract that secures protections for everyone; international students, disabled students, parents, and BIPOC students."

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Brett, PhD Student in Neuroscience, UC Berkeley

"It has been a neverending struggle to balance having children while working at the UC. Not only are my children viewed as a liability by my department, PI, and the university, but there is no assistance programs or healthcare coverage under the current contract. My wife and daughter have needed critical medical and dental care multiple times during my time at the UC. Not only has the university been uncaring in its response but they have actively shifted, at least in my experience, to avoid admitting parents at flagship campuses like Berkeley. My family has suffered greatly due to the university's focus on cutting labor costs and when presented with a chance to reverse their wrongs, they have doubled down. I have had to pay large sums out of pocket for childcare and having to watch our children has limited the employment opportunities of my wife and I due to the UC's heartless policies. I will be forced to leave my graduate program if I cannot get health insurance for my family."

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Claudia, Sociology PhD Student, UC Merced

"I will run out of county cash aid eligibility halfway during my program. At that point, I will be solely responsible for childcare costs for 3 kids under 10. Student researchers/fellows currently do not get childcare reimbursements. The current proposal would only cover my costs for 3 months, leaving me financially responsible for 6 months of after-school care and 3 months of full-time care in the summer. I may have to choose to not continue with my program and lose the time and resources that I have invested and that others have invested, including the university.

As a single mom to 4, I qualify for Cash Aid and Food Stamps under the CalWorks program. In my first semester this fall, I pursued the advanced payment available for CalWorks students of $500 towards books/supplies. I went through the correct channels and only met resistance, because no one knew what I was talking about when I sought out an official UC signature for my CalWorks form to qualify for the payment. The registrar didn't feel comfortable signing off on my list of required books, even with syllabus documentation. The financial aid counselor didn't feel comfortable signing off because no one had experience with CalWorks and the university does not have a CalWorks liaison. If I hadn't been a college admin for 10 years elsewhere, I would have given up the first three times.

Very few in my position have the time to escalate through multiple levels. Even fewer have the institutional knowledge to affirm that they have a right to this assistance (in the form of a signature) from the university. I accepted my financial aid package and admissions offer in the spring prior to my first semester. My FAFSA expected family contribution (EFC) was no longer accurate because my status had changed from fully employed spouse to unemployed single mom. I filed a special circumstances appeal in June, so that my EFC could be adjusted from $10,000 down to $0. This wasn't just important to my campus aid package; my EFC was being used to determine the size of an outside scholarship award. I would either get the lowest $500 award or the maximum $5,000 award. I followed up with the financial aid office every week. The first month, I received the response that my appeal was in queue. The second month, I was referred back to the FAFSA to update my income information. I had to dig through the FAFSA website for evidence that the appropriate body to review my change in income is the school itself, not the federal government. The third month, I was notified that the financial aid office does not review appeals for graduate students.

Since we have 5 yr funding packages, there had supposedly never been an appeal filed before. My guess is that anyone who did file an appeal accepted their rejection at face value and gave up. Thanks to my institutional knowledge, I asserted my rights to an appeal and review because of my changed circumstances. By October, I was calling the financial aid director daily since I was on the cusp of losing the chance to be awarded the $5,000 outside scholarship. I got lucky one day and the person I spoke with took me seriously and pushed the review. My EFC was updated that same day.

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Anonymous PhD Student, UCLA

[During the strike] I loved the idea that we were building community. I liked meeting others in my department. I loved the idea that we would fight for a livable wage. I'm a former foster youth, formerly homeless, first-gen student with no family support. I decided to go to graduate school because I wanted to do research that was community-oriented, which was my first mistake. Since then I've been in such financial precarity that I can't survive like this. I'm lucky to have a supportive partner; how many of us stay in abusive relationships because we can't afford to move or live alone? I know one girl off the top of my head in this situation. I got involved in the union and went headfirst into the strike because I thought we could fight for a more livable contract for ALL. I'll be mastering out in the spring. I can't be financially dependent any longer, it's bringing up PTSD from not being able to rely on myself.

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Mo, PhD Student, UC Santa Barbara

"I’m on fellowship, and while I spend most of my pay on rent, I have the privilege of digging into my savings and leaning on my family that many of my friends and colleagues do not. I’m doing this in solidarity with all the grad students who do not have the privileges I do. One should not need to have considerable savings put aside just to be able to go to grad school. I’m also very touched by the struggles of my fellow disabled grads and was hoping for more and better protections for them (and myself). On top of everything, I just found that being out on the picket line day after day had a positive effect on my mental health.

I can’t remember a time in my life when I’ve socialized as much as I have on the picket line. As an international student who comes from a place where unionizing and labor actions/protests are illegal, I’m very new to all of this and it has been a very valuable educational experience. Initially intending to participate only tangentially, I found myself getting more involved and eager to help out wherever I could. I made a lot of new friends, met a lot of new people, and learned a lot through it all. I would be happy to be even more involved next time around.

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Ellie, PhD Student, UC Davis

"My pay was changed multiple times within the first few months of getting into my program as a first year to try to prevent us from joining the union. I am rent-burdened and have been overworked and underpaid as a student worker for a long time. Enough is enough.

I have been involved in picket safety efforts, which I greatly enjoy. Putting on a vest and helping rank and file march safely, and putting myself in between them and traffic was terrifying but empowering in a lot of ways. I loved the chants, the camaraderie, and being able to finally meet people outside my department bubble."

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Summer, Environmental Studies PhD Student, UC Santa Cruz

I did my MA at UC Berkeley, where the housing situation is very bad. But I can confidently say that Santa Cruz’s housing situation is much worse. It is impossible to find housing that you can afford on your own with a grad student’s salary. When I was first looking for a living space here, myself and my friends got turned down by landlords because our paystubs were too low to give them the confidence that we would actually be able to make the rent each month. These experiences of being denied housing simply because I am a graduate student have been a wake up call for myself and a lot of my colleagues.

The Santa Cruz rental market is very hostile not just to graduate students, but to blue collar workers, teachers, and even middle class people who don’t have a steady high income, that is how bad it is here. I strike out of concern for many of my colleagues who are in unstable housing situations; living in hotels, couch-surfing, or trapped with abusive landlords because that is the only situation they can afford. In a addition, many landlords here abide by sketchy lease policies where they can kick out the renter at any time and they often hold this power over their tenants’ heads. 60% of my paycheck and the paycheck of my three roommates goes to rent. I think that by striking and winning a good contract, we have a great chance of eliminating worker exploitation across the UC system.

I study the food system, and I have connections to the campus farm and agroecology program. I take a lot of pride in being a member of the food team and working to provide food for our campus picket line. So many students have expressed their gratitude for being able to eat for free here on the picket line each day; some have said that they otherwise skip meals to save money. The fight for COLA ties into food justice, everyone deserves to have the funds to afford what they want to eat. Nobody should be forced to choose between buying textbooks and buying fresh produce, which is unfortunately the situation for many grads across the UC.

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Craig, Chemistry PhD Student, UC Riverside

"I’ll start with saying that I believe in what I do. I love researching and I love teaching. However, my time in graduate school has really worn out my desire to continue these endeavors. The horrendous pay and extremely toxic environment has made finding work outside of academia much more appealing. If the UC wants to keep the people they are training in this line of work they need to treat their entry-level grad workers much better.

Since I have started at UCR three years ago my savings account has gone from being able to support me for six months to not being able to handle a $500 emergency. I have seen my department ignore abusers to “protect the image of the department” by saying “at least he is graduating soon”. Who knows how many other abusers have stayed in our department under similar reasoning. I have seen my disabled coworkers get shamed and get campus cops called on them for using accessibility spaces.

Some of my colleagues live and work in constant fear of their PIs who are known to fire people without warning and drive unrealistic expectations of work that require working late and on weekends regularly. Throughout my time here and the strike many administrators, deans, and professors have scolded graduate workers and told them that grad school is “a time to be poor”. This internalized notion of poverty and exploitation is ridiculous given that our chancellors and the president get six-figure salaries and six-figure raises each year. UC has the money and ability to give us a living wage, and it is high time that they did.”

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Robin, History of Consciousness PhD Student, UC Santa Cruz

“I was lucky enough to secure a stable living situation with some great roommates - but situations like mine are rare here. Inflation has taken a huge toll on the housing market, and landlords here are notoriously predatory and unscrupulous. A friend of mine was served an eviction notice by a landlord after recently moving in as part of a scheme to steal his security deposit. This friend later ended up having to live in the local Best Western, and I know a variety of students who are living in hotels because they were scammed by landlords or simply didn’t have enough money to continue making rent. Witnessing the struggles of my colleagues has made it clear that the status quo cannot continue.

The UC needs to pay its students fairly because if they don’t, they’re discriminating against graduate students without generational wealth or the personal economic means to afford a ridiculously high cost of living. If we win a COLA and better childcare protections, we will set a new standard for academic labor practices in this country. It’s time to change subpar working conditions and fight against systems that are impossible to navigate in if you don’t have wealth and privilege. If a prospective student asked me about whether they should come here, I would possibly have to tell them that they would become impoverished paying high rents and that maybe they shouldn’t come - and that’s wrong.

I’m part of the music team here on the picket line, which I’m very excited about. I’m a big soccer fan, so I love making riffs of soccer chants with pro-union/pro-strike lyrics to bring the energy up and get people engaged. For me and other members of the team, music is more than just a way of self-expression, it’s a way of being true to your political commitments and building solidarity with others in a light-hearted way, and that is what will keep us motivated as this strike continues.

Our picket has really brought out the best in people, there is something for everyone to contribute to, whether its cooking, phone banking, media outreach, leading chants, or composing strike music. I’ve made great connections here and I think that community spirit is why our picket line has remained strong, even with all the challenges."

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Delanie, English PhD Student, UC Davis

“In a seminar last year, a professor intentionally excluded me from student introductions, and when an allied student asked about it, he told the class I was disabled and don’t speak. This FERPA violation could be prevented by training, but our bargaining struck it [by removing the Access UC Articles for Disabled Students.] My department wanted to MANDATE access training for faculty, which was huge! But then UC said “No,” I didn’t expect my bargaining team to, as well.

I dropped out of the class, like many of my disabled colleagues. Yes, the university knew what happened. And this is only one of several public FERPA violations I have experienced while at UC. I did what UC asked. I submitted documentation, worked with Disability Services, and reached out to this professor in advance to explain my accommodations, which included the fact that I am non-verbal. So my direct communication was overridden by his biases. The current system doesn’t work.”

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Tomas, Politics PhD Student, UC Santa Cruz

"As the president of the GSA [Grad Student Association], I have heard a plethora of horror stories from students barely making ends meet. I’m on strike because, to put it quite bluntly, UC admin does not believe that we struggle as much as we do and they refuse to help. My colleagues and I on the GSA have worked endlessly to communicate with upper-level administrators about students living in cars, staying with abusive partners to avoid paying higher rent, parents being unable to care for their children, and other such situations.

Administrators try, but they often don’t listen. I am a first generation graduate student, and even my low salary is more than both my parents make. I send them money to help them with their mortgage bills. One time, I ran out of money to make rent because my landlord increased the rate and I had to ask my parents to send me money. This incident left me with a deep sense of shame, because I felt like it was my job to be helping out my parents financially, not for them to have to be worried about helping me.

I work on campus and I teach classes at a community college to make ends meet. When bringing up problems with money to admin as the GSA president, their only solution is to refer students to slug support. This is a great campus support program that gives out amounts between 50-800 dollars to help students meet their basic needs. Slug Support is great, but it is not going to help bail out a grad student who can’t make a monthly rent of $1,400-$2,500 dollars. In addition, there have been issues where the UC ’s payroll system doesn’t distribute paycheck money on time, which is a situation that happened to me this past summer when I was employed as a GSR [Grad Student Researcher] If we win a decent contract, many first generation and POC students have the most to gain, as statistically speaking, especially at this campus, they remain the most economically disadvantaged group of graduate students.

What I enjoy the most about the picket line here at this campus is the sense of community. For many of us, graduate school is a bit of a solitary pursuit - you do your own research, you visit with your advisor on your own, you write your dissertation alone. The picket line here is such a wonderful source of community and a way to let each other know that we have one another’s backs, that we will support each other emotionally even in tough times. We are, to different extents, going through the same tough economic struggles and the mental pain that comes with that, but being together with one another gives us the ability to hope and work towards more. 

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Hana, Physics PhD Student, UC Irvine

"Even as a domestic student without kids living on campus, without extensive medical needs, it would take a salary of at least $40-45K per year to keep me out of rent burden (per the US Department of Housing and Urban Development parameters), and upwards of $45K to end food insecurity. Of course, this assumes the UC doesn’t spike my rent after any raises – which is why we fought for a COLA. I spend at least six days per month extensively researching & planning how to spend every last penny, driving to over six grocery stores to use every coupon and make sure I’m not wasting a penny – including balancing the cost of gas. To reiterate: I am privileged among my peers – if I’m rent burdened and food insecure, just imagine and learn about how my peers struggle to make ends meet. It’s one thing to be responsible, it’s another to be forced into a state of constant panic about money – it’s unhealthy, and keeps us from doing our best work."

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Jen, Earth and Planetary Science PhD Student, UC Riverside

“I'm in my thirties and this paycheck is the most I've ever made before in my life. In many ways I feel lucky and am very grateful that this job has given me safety and security in a financial sense. The costs of this financial "success" has meant sacrificing on physical safety in my living conditions (my vehicle has been vandalized multiple times throughout the years - including a failed theft attempt) and living somewhere a bit run down (unreliable water pressure, multiple appliance failures, near-monthly water shut-offs for emergency plumbing issues, etc.). The upside of these sacrifices to physical comfort and safety is that I have been able to save a considerable amount of money over my many years of grad school. However, I ended up in the emergency room last year. Our health plan is self funded and so it is not subject to the many legal consumer protections that health insurance in California have been subject to for over a decade (for example balance billing has been illegal in California for over a decade but only illegal federally since the beginning of 2022). While I have been fighting the balance bills I have been getting, every day I live in fear that the emergency appendectomy I had is going to wipe out the entirety of my savings.

I'm financially independent. I don't have parents I can rely on in a worst case scenario. I live in fear everyday that everything I've been able to scrape together over the years is about to disappear. I did everything "right" financially as a graduate student and yet one medical emergency is enough to ruin me financially. I don't know how other grad students are able to survive who make less than I do and have more financial obligations than I typically do.

The one other thing that's helped me save money is that I don't travel "back home" for the holidays and I've only left Riverside twice for non-work trips for my six years of graduate school. Not having family obligations has been a huge reason for my ability to save. All it takes is one emergency to completely destroy a graduate student financially and I want to make that point in a way that the UC system can't point at and say I made choices that put me in a financially precarious situation. I'm also hoping that by having a story of someone that lives somewhat robotically - rare vacations and rarely seeing family, it shows just how many quality of life sacrifices must be made to survive on how little they pay us.”

[voicesfromthepicket]

Albert, Physics PhD Student, UC Merced

"I am on strike to fight for fair compensation and the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) as a fifth year physics PhD student and teaching assistant at UC Merced. Even though I am living in one of the cheapest areas of California, the housing crisis that all of us as academic workers face is still ever present here. Apartments that were once $700 per month are now upwards of $1,200 per month for one bedroom. To make matters worse, the amount of affordable housing has dwindled in the past five years because there has been little development in the city for such housing units. Because of this, many workers end up finding rooms in large houses that are still a ways away from campus where we work, with rental rates exacerbated by greedy landlords and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Workers are beginning to pay $1000 per month for a master bedroom in a house when they might as well invest that money into an apartment.The icing on the cake is that our campus is in the middle of farm fields and at least 2 miles from the closest neighborhoods. Many workers and students rely on the CatTracks (UC contracted) shuttle system to get to campus and around town, but even the shuttle system has been deemed unreliable by many with consistently late shuttles and missed stops. These two joint issues leave so many workers and students frustrated and affect all of our parent workers, disabled workers, and international workers. Therefore, I stand in solidarity with marginalized workers and their families and remain active in the strike by helping with departmental and campus-wide organizing and continuing to fight for all of our workers across the UC system. The initial wages demand of $54k+COLA to address rent burden is what united us to walk off our jobs and stand on the picket line back in November. In doing so, we have fostered and created a tight-knit community of students that are strong, united, and passionate in this fight. We are not willing to give up.

I believe this fight goes beyond UC and beyond California - it is a call to address the systemic problems in higher education in our nation. Therefore, I am striking for base wages to completely eliminate our rent burden. I am striking for protections for parent workers, disabled workers, and international workers, and I stand in solidarity with all workers. The latest proposals from UC that a majority of the bargaining teams voted on are inadequate and insufficient in addressing rent burden which is the central issue we face. A fair contract must meet the needs of all workers, including the most vulnerable.

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Kristine, History PhD Student, UC Santa Cruz

“Prior to entering graduate school, I worked a job I hated for six years, one that was completely unrelated to work I wanted to pursue, just so that I could afford to get my PhD. I am now returning to school much later in life than I had expected because I knew I needed a honeypot to survive. However, I didn’t expect things to be as bad as they are. My meager savings won’t survive the 7 years (the average of a history PhD student in my department). I live an hour away in San Jose with my partner to save money, but even then, I am still 76% rent-burdened. And for my colleagues and friends in the Santa Cruz area, where rent is even worse, a grad student’s salary is completely inadequate to live on.

I am here on the picket line to support all of us and fight for better wages. As a historian, I know that what we are doing here at Santa Cruz has the potential to improve things for all of the grad students who enter the UC System in the future. I know students in horrible living conditions because they can’t afford to move, as any place would come with expensive moving fees and/or rent increases. They are in houses without proper plumbing or heating systems. There was a testimonial from somebody in my department who, in order to budget money for rent and the inflated cost of groceries, had to stop paying for their medication and began rationing dosages so that they could take it for a little while longer. Another student was afraid to report that there was black mold in their apartment for fear that the landlord would repair it and then increase the cost of the rent. When our health and wellbeing suffers, so does our research, and this is something the UC needs to realize.

I love being in community with other students here on the picket line. My department, History, has had a strong presence here that makes me proud to be a member of it. I admire all my colleagues from the department who are out at the picket, especially given the trauma the last strike inflicted on my department when many students were unfairly targeted by the administration for participating in union organizing in 2019 and 2020. I love helping out here in any way I can, even if it’s just cheering up other students by bringing my dog Mango. We have an incredible team here at Santa Cruz and I am so grateful to be on this campus.

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Anonymous PhD Student, UC Irvine

“I have gone through a medical procedure on my finger and have dental procedures lined up. The costs of these are so massive that I may be unable to book my flights to go back home. I am an international student. The fact that I have to choose between healthcare and going back home highlights my pains as a grad student who gets inadequate wages.”