UC officials call for mediator as strike by 48,000 academic workers causes systemwide disruptions
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UC officials call for mediator as strike by 48,000 academic workers causes systemwide disruptions
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University professors nationwide joined a one-day walkout Thursday to protest against recent contract changes that raise the base salary for lecturers across the UC system.
Roughly 12,000 faculty members across UC campuses across the state called and participated Wednesday evening as an extension of a strike that started Dec. 6.
The strike is the first of a series of walkouts set to take place on Dec. 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 to protest the impact of a series of contract “reforms” to increase the UC system’s base salary for academic workers.
The University of California Labor Federation, whose nearly 20,000 members are academic faculty, staff and students, released a statement Thursday morning calling it “the first strike by faculty across the entire UC system.”
“This is the first strike of faculty across the entire UC system in a 30-year period,” UCLF executive director Mike Sesin said in a statement. “There will be more to come.”
Sesin said that UCPD officers are “proactively advising and assisting” the strike’s participants.
“UCPD is doing everything they can to help protect the academic community’s right to peaceful protest and free speech. UCPD is continuing to send resources to faculty and students, as well as the broader community, to help them navigate the unprecedented nature of what’s happening on campus,” Sesin said.
In addition to the contract changes on the table, the strike is also protesting UC’s handling of what they characterize as a systemwide response to the walkout – including cuts to teaching faculty, service and library positions, and the University’s $4 billion “sustainability” plan.
More than half of the teaching staff at UC campuses across the UC system, which has an undergraduate enrollment of nearly 49,000 this fall, are scheduled to be laid off over the next two school years, Sesin said.
UC’s UC President Janet Napolitano has said she is reviewing the strike and its relationship to the