Tentative Agreement between UC and grad students

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16

The L.A. Times and the Long Beach Press-Telegram have reported that the grad students who are striking at the University of California will vote next week on whether to accept a tentative agreement in which they would get less than half of what they were demanding when they went on strike. My guess is that the agreement will be confirmed. I also bet that those who urge the students to accept this agreement won’t point out how inflation by the year 2025 (when the agreement expires) will eat into around 15 percent of these gains. The raise the strike has won is significant, but it would only truly be meaningful if it were tied to the rate of inflation.

The lack of any accountability for inflation in the contract the California Faculty Association agreed to is what makes the contract recently agreed to so disheartening. As I noted back when the CFA held a binding referendum on that “team-friendly” contract, I voted “no,” and one of the reasons is that I knew the professors could have gotten more if we had first demanded arbitration and then voted to strike. The union’s betrayal of those who were planning on retirement in the next three years was especially egregious.

I applaud the grad students for this minor victory, but if they continued the strike and demanded an inflation adjustment clause, I would applaud them ever more fervently.

Onward!

Striking workers reach tentative deal with UC

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