Calls For UC Berkeley Strike Renewed After UC Santa Cruz Fires Striking Graduate Students

After UC Santa Cruz fired 54 graduate students who had been on strike, UC Berkeley graduate students are considering whether to stage their own strike in solidarity.

“This is only adding fuel to our fire,” said UC Berkeley graduate student organizer and Ph.D. candidate Tara Phillips. “I would not be surprised if there were a full strike sometime next week.”

The UC Santa Cruz students were dismissed Friday after failing to comply with a university-imposed deadline to submit grades they had been withholding since December.

“We have been left with no choice but to take an action that we had truly and deeply hoped to avoid,” wrote interim Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer in an open letter. “Students who fail to meet their contractual obligations by withholding fall grade information will not receive spring quarter appointments, or if they have received them they will be dismissed from their spring quarter appointments.”

UC Santa Cruz strike organizer and fifth-year student Stephen David Engel received notice Friday that he'll no longer be allowed to teach his own course this spring, something he had dreamed of doing for a decade. “I already had undergraduates both in the humanities and the sciences reaching out to me to tell me how excited they were about the course,” he said. “It's pretty heartbreaking, actually, to not be able to teach that course.”

Some UC Berkeley students are more cautious about whether a solidarity strike will be effective.

“Students are trying to understand if direct action in Sacramento would be better [or] if direct action within student government would be better,” said Kerby Lynch, vice president of external affairs of the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly. “We want to direct our energy in the most appropriate place.”

About 200 UC Santa Cruz teaching assistants decided in December to withhold fall quarter grades to demand an increase in pay of $1,412 a month to afford the area's high cost of living.

The students escalated the grade strike in early February to a full work stoppage by refusing to teach, hold office hours, conduct research or post grades. Seventeen students were arrested at a campus protest Feb. 12, and UC Santa Cruz and the UC president published a series of letters online warning student workers they would be disciplined if they failed to submit grades.

The strike is considered a wildcat strike because it is not endorsed by the union that represents UC's graduate student employees, who are working under a four-year contract that expires in 2022.

UC Santa Cruz spokesman Scott Hernandez-Jason said the administration has worked to hear and address teaching assistants’ concerns. This week, the university offered a $2,500 stipend and two temporary housing assistance programs. Hernandez-Jason added that 96% of grades have been submitted and the “vast majority” of graduate students have returned to work.

Engel said many students who accepted the stipend and turned in their grades remain committed to the movement, with some pledging not to replace fired students.

UC Santa Barbara graduate students voted Monday for a full strike, and UC Davis students decided Thursday to withhold student grades for the winter quarter until the university raises their housing supplement.

UC leadership has said it’s sympathetic to the housing burden, but won't reopen its existing four-year contract with the statewide students' union.

But student organizers like Engel said they intend to intensify their efforts.

“We want to force [UC President] Janet Napolitano to step back on her position, which has been , ‘I am unwilling to reopen the contract,’ ” he said.

Several campuses plan to hold general assemblies where graduate students will discuss next steps, including possible strikes. At UC Berkeley, a general assembly of graduate students is planned for 5 p.m. Monday at Eshleman Hall.

KQED’s Sara Hossaini, Kate Wolffe and the Associated Press contributed to this story.