Improving Equity at UC

Despite stated commitments to diversity and inclusion, UC falls short of fostering an academy that is truly equitable. With help from UAW 2865 and UAW 5810, Student Researchers recently surveyed over 1700 of our colleagues. 87% of Student Researchers surveyed said improving equity at UC is “Extremely Important”. Here’s what else we found:

Clearly, Student Researchers need the kind of independent recourse in addition to Title IX that we can win through forming a union and negotiating with UC.

Achieving greater equity for UC researchers is central to the rights and protections that UC Postdocs and Teaching Assistants have won through unionization. For example, UC academic workers have improved equity at UC by:

  • Promoting gender equity in academia by winning increased time off and parental leave, flexible scheduling, and dependent health coverage at low cost.
  • Fighting to stop discrimination and sexual harassment with improved protections that ensure survivors’ careers are not jeopardized by reporting harassment. (Read more on the findings in a recent NASEM Report about rampant sexual harassment in science and academia.)
  • Promoting trans inclusion by winning trans-inclusive healthcare and gender-neutral bathrooms. 
  • Increasing Postdoc salaries by 34% (an average of $13k) making UC Postdocs the highest paid of any public university.
  • Increasing Teaching Assistant salaries by 64% and winning full in-state tuition and partial fee remission, making academia more inclusive to first-generation students, people of color, and those without independent means of funding a graduate career. 
  • Ensuring academic employees are paid on time so that higher education remains accessible to all, not just the independently wealthy.

“In spring 2019 I was working as a TA for a large introductory course in my department when one of my students began harassing me. The student’s behavior ranged from asking me whether I used drugs, to locking me into my own office, to making inappropriate comments about my sexual orientation and gender expression.

Finally, a month after I had begun trying to resolve my case with management, I decided to contact my union (and, on the same day, the Title IX office). My UAW stewards responded immediately, and by the end of the next day, they had met with me and filed a grievance under our contract’s harassment provisions. Within days of filing the grievance, I was able to have the student moved out of my section and end all contact with her. 

I am 100% confident this would not have happened if the Title IX process was my only option. Why am I confident? Because UC’s Title IX office ultimately ruled that the student’s behavior toward me was not sexual harassment (as not all of the behavior was sexual in nature). If I had pursued my case only through the Title IX process I would likely have had to teach this student and tolerate her harassing behavior through the end of the semester.”

– A recent member of UAW Local 2865

These protections are guaranteed by the union grievance process. For example, when Sandra Koch was discriminated against as a pregnant Postdoc at UCLA, she filed a union grievance and rallied the support of her coworkers. UCLA reinstated her and her career is back on target; by the time Title IX would have investigated her situation, she would have lost her visa status and had to return to her home country. Read about Sandra’s experience in her own words.  

UAW Academic Workers have also fought back against Education Secretary DeVos and the Trump administration has proposed changes that would severely weaken protections against sexual assault and harassment in academia. Read the public comment the International Union UAW submitted against these harmful proposals.

There’s much more work to be done, but by coming together collectively, Student Researchers have more power to effect change at UC than they do as individuals.

You can learn more about how academic workers have improved equity by forming unions at workersequity.org.

Members of UAW 5810 and 2865 rallying against pregnancy discrimination at UCLA, Spring 2019