UAW grows by 17,000 academic workers in California after threat to strike UC

Laura Beebe, a scientist based at the University of California, San Diego, is celebrating news that she's among more than 17,000 higher education workers on the West Coast who now officially are represented in contract negotiations by the UAW.

It wasn't easy.

A quiet campaign by union organizers at the University of California, which includes 10 campuses in the state, ended in May with more than 10,000 signed cards officially submitted to authorities that would create the Student Researchers United-UAW. Then the process stalled.

Since then, the workers have waited for recognition so that they could engage in collective bargaining. The University of California only agreed on Wednesday to officially recognize the group, two weeks after it voted to authorize a strike.

Of the 10,890 student researchers who voted, 10,622 voted to strike — a month after 49 state lawmakers and 30 members of Congress urged Michael Drake, president of the University of California system, to take action, the UAW noted in a news release.

The process had been verified by California's Public Employee Relations Board.

The grant writing and experiments of student researchers on any college campus drive innovation, discovery and the creation of jobs.

This new union in California will represent student researchers who work in biotechnology, computer science, agriculture, and green energy.

"Our work generates a lot of value for the university," said Beebe, 26, a neurobiologist who studies how organisms sense nutrients and how that translates to their feeding behavior. For example, when fruit flies mate, they consume more protein afterward and points to how brains are capable of setting nutrient targets.

Paychecks late or not at all

"We don't, as workers, have a lot of rights and protections. Things we'd really like include paid family leave. Something we really want is to be paid on time. Our paychecks come late, for incorrect amounts or not at all. It's a really big problem," she told the Free Press late Thursday. "We would like recourse for sexual harassment and assault and protection from discrimination in situations including pregnancy."

Key priorities include reducing gender inequity, protecting international researchers who work on college campuses and raising wages "so that student researchers can afford to live where we work," said Jess Banks, a student researcher in the Mathematics department at the University of California, Berkeley, in a news release.

UC opposition

The issue that caused the delay related to having a clear definition of which graduate students would be covered by the union, UC spokesperson Ryan King emailed to the Free Press on Friday. 

"The University appreciates UAW’s partnership as we worked through the process. We look forward to beginning good-faith negotiations on a multi-year collective bargaining agreement in the months ahead," he said. "UC believes our graduate student researchers make important contributions to the university."

The UC system has a solid record of supporting employees’ right to form or join unions, King said. Currently, eight separate unions represent 14 system-wide bargaining units, in addition to about 20 local bargaining units at UC campuses and medical centers.

The UC students decided to organize through the UAW because of its success at schools including the University of Washington, Harvard and Columbia University, Beebe said. "It's exciting to be joining such a diverse union — of automobile, aerospace and agricultural implement workers. We take a lot of inspiration from that, we welcome the experience of solidarity." 

She cited the five-week UAW strike against John Deere that ended in mid-November as "a really good example of courage."

Organizing amid pandemic

The growth of the UAW in areas outside manufacturing has been steady over the past five years, including lawyers and engineers and academic workers.

The union has almost 400,000 active members and 1.2 million overall, including retirees, according to the latest UAW data provided Friday. All member dues support workers and their strike activity. So an academic worker in California would be helping the striker at Deere in Iowa and Illinois.

“This is a historic win for workers and for the UAW as a diverse and growing union," Ray Curry, president of the UAW International based in Detroit, said in a statement to the Free Press this week.

"For decades, workers from across numerous sectors of our economy — from auto, aerospace and agricultural implement to gaming, public sector and higher education — have recognized the power of joining together, organizing and bargaining as part of the UAW for more just working conditions," he said. "These 17,000 Student Researchers join a long line of higher education workers who have helped make the UAW a stronger and more inclusive union."

More:Despite COVID-19 and scandal, UAW income and strike fund grow with steady membership

This Student Researchers United-UAW union is the largest new UAW unit in 2021. It is also the largest unit of student employees organized at once in U.S. history, and it was organized during the pandemic, Curry pointed out.

"We look forward to working with UC to bargain a fair contract that improves working conditions for the people whose labor has made UC one of the most respected research institutions in the world," Aarthi Sekar, a student researcher in the Integrative Genetics and Genomics Graduate Group at the University of California, Davis, said in a news release.

“The UAW is proud to welcome UC Student Researchers into our union family,” Cindy Estrada, UAW Vice President and head of the UAW Stellantis, Women’s, and Higher Education Organizing Departments, said in a news release. “They have shown what is possible when workers stand together and refuse to be divided. We look forward to supporting them as they bargain a strong first contract.”

Under the UC recognition agreement, all categories of student researchers —researchers, fellows, and trainees — will be included in the union. 

More:Many of UAW's newest members aren't traditional autoworkers

More:UAW suddenly adds 1,700 PhD medical researchers, scientists as members

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard:313-618-1034 orphoward@freepress.com.Follow her on Twitter@phoebesaid. Read more on Ford and sign up for our autos newsletter.