Hundreds of academic workers protested at the UCLA campus on Wednesday.
They took their strike to the outdoor area near the UCLA Luskin Conference Center, where the Board of Regents of the University of California met at 9:30 a.m.
This strike has been ongoing for a month, and it’s the nation’s largest involving higher education academic workers.
Finals week at 10 UC campuses was disrupted, forcing exams to be scaled back, study sessions to be canceled and more.
On Wednesday, the presidents of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor and United Teachers Los Angeles were on hand to lend their support, as was Tom Morello, the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.
For weeks, UC officials have urged the 36,000 academy employees, who are represented by the UAW union, to resolve their disputes through an independent mediator.
The union, however, said the UC system has failed thus far to bring any new proposals to the table during negotiations.
The UC system proposed take-home pay of $29,000 to $49,000 over the next two years, with tuition and fees included as well, but the union wants a minimum salary of $43,000, prompting the strike.
“This fight is really about who gets to participate in the university,” said Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 2865. “When salaries don’t match the cost of living, that drives many workers out of academia. That hurts the mission of the university. The university is supposed to be an engine for economic mobility and currently, it’s failing at that, because it’s not supporting the workers that make the university run, and that fails the students and the public of California.”
UC officials said in a statement they believe their proposals are “fair, reasonable and honor the important contributions these bargaining unit members make toward the University’s mission of education and research.”
