April 14, 2021 Graduate Student Associations (GSAs) across the UC system are endorsing Student Researchers’ right to form a union. On Wednesday, April 14th, the UCLA GSA became the latest GSA to adopt a resolution recognizing SRs’ right to unionize. This came after GSAs passed similar resolutions at UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, and UC Santa Cruz. The executive board of the UC San Francisco Associated Students of the Graduate Division (ASGD) also passed such a resolution, though the full delegate assembly has yet to vote on it. The UCLA Electrical & Computer Engineering Department Graduate & Postdoc...

In the middle of a historic pandemic and a housing crisis, UC is raising rents in student housing on many campuses. At Berkeley, San Francisco, San Diego, and UCLA, residents, including many Student Researchers, are fighting for affordable housing - and winning.  Next Thursday, March 25th at 5PM, join campus housing tenants, UAW members, and community members from across the state to share organizing strategies and spread the movement to win affordable housing at UC. RSVP here. Rent strikers at UC Los Angeles win rent freeze Last Friday, the UCLA Housing office notified the UCLA rent strikers, some of whom have been withholding rent for 9...

March 19, 2021 On Tuesday night, a 21-year-old white man murdered eight people at three spas in Atlanta. We know six of their names: Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Julie Park, and Hyeon Jeong Park. Six of the victims were Asian or Asian American, and all but one of the victims were women. According to Stop AAPI Hate, anti-Asian violence has grown at an alarming rate over the last year, and as AAPI activists and popular media have pointed out, this anti-Asian xenophobia and racism is deeply rooted in US history. Violence against Asian people and Pacific Islanders is an almost-daily occurrence;...

March 10, 2021 Please join me in attending the online Housing Justice Conference co-organized by our union TODAY - Wednesday, March 10 from 5-6:30pm. This will be an exciting event to kick off actions to win housing justice for academic workers across the West Coast! Click here to register and you’ll be sent a zoom link! Best, Stephanie PurnellJunior SpecialistUCSF Sound and Music Perception Lab     West Coast Housing Justice Conference What: Housing justice action conference co-hosted by UAW 5810, UAW 2865, UAW 4121, and UAW 4123When: March 10 from 5-6:30pmHow to join: RSVP here! Postdocs and Academic Researchers are overwhelmingly rent...

Yesterday, UCSD administration announced extreme increases in rental rates for campus graduate housing starting July 1, 2021. These increases are so high that Housing, Dining, & Hospitality (HDH) is telling graduate students that, to obtain affordable housing, they will have to double up in a single room, despite their claim that campus housing is affordable and predictable.

March 8, 2021 We're very happy to report that Graduate Division recently announced its new Non-Resident Student Tuition (NRST) policy - making waivers available to post-candidacy graduate students for up to 12 quarters. All post-candidacy non-resident graduate students should make sure to apply for their waiver by visiting the University's website here. Nearly 700 Student Researchers and Teaching Assistants advocated for NRST waivers through petitions, meetings with UCR administrators, and completing surveys. This victory creates additional protections for international students that experience an increase in time to degree as a result of...

February 4, 2021 Access to affordable housing is a long-standing problem for Student Researchers. For many, COVID-19 has exacerbated the issue. SRs are performing their research from home, oftentimes in overcrowded housing, a main vector by which the pandemic spreads. How has the housing crisis affected you? My partner - a Postdoc at UCLA - and I both got sick in March. Ten months later, she is still sick and can't stand for more than two hours at a time. We have medical bills, and if she can't work we're down to one salary. We live in on-campus housing at UCLA and the University charges me 75% of my salary as a Graduate Student Researcher...

January 18, 2021 Today we commemorate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When Dr. King was assassinated, he was visiting Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking sanitation workers organizing with AFSCME (a union that today represents thousands of workers at the University of California) for workplace safety protections after two sanitation workers were killed on the job. King saw the demands of the all-Black sanitation workers for their rights as a racial justice demand, a demand for a recognition of their humanity and right to live. For his support of their struggle, and all his advocacy of civil rights for people of color, MLK...

January 12, 2021 Academic employees have advocated for the rights of parents at UC for years, and Postdocs and Teaching Assistants haveeven won significant paid parental leave time, safe lactation spaces, and childcare reimbursements through their union contracts. Right now, UC is considering a systemwide policy to expand paid parental and family  leave, but part-time employees do not qualify. That means all Student Researchers, typically working at 50% appointments or less, would be unable to participate in the proposed paid family leave program. Let’s change that - click here to send a comment to UC during the open comment period ending...

December 2, 2020 Have you or someone you know been paid late? We have heard that many Student Researchers (SRs) across the state have been paid late or incorrectly. With a union, SRs can negotiate the contractual right to timely pay; a right secured by Postdocs and TAs through their union contract. The Postdoc union (UAW 5810) and TA union (UAW 2865) have won significant grievances in the past, winning increased compensation for academic workers who have sometimes gone weeks without full pay. UAW 2865 even sponsored a law creating more accountability for UC to pay wages on time.  While Student Researchers don’t yet have a union grievance...