Faculty of the Art Department would like to express their support of the student workers represented by the UAW across the campuses of the University of California.
We urge the UCSC administration to encourage UCOP to bargain with the UAW in good faith and to take the bargaining position of the UC Graduate Student Associations seriously. This is necessary to bring UC’s graduate student employee salary scale into line with that of our comparison institutions, to account for the cost of living in California, and to keep pace with the rate of inflation especially in rents and cost of living. We also call on the University of California not to retaliate against legitimate strike activity.
We invite the UCSC administration to recognize graduate students as foundational to the University’s research and teaching mission. This would enable the UC to better compete with comparison universities around the country for the best graduate students and achieve its goals of excellence.