It should have come as no surprise when, early last November, more than 47,000 academic workers—a group that includes PhD students, lecturers, teaching assistants, and others—across the ten campuses of the University of California (UC) joined together to enact the largest academic strike in United States history. Living in the third most expensive state in the nation with an average salary of $24,000 and few benefits to speak of, the situation had simply become too untenable for too long while the services these workers provided to their respective departments had long gone undervalued. “We teach the classes, grade the papers, and perform the cutting-edge research that has earned UC its reputation as the best public university in the world,” explains the opening page of Fairucnow.org, one of many union-led websites created in recent months. “In short, UC works because we do.”
For those students and candidates within the PhD program at UCLA’s Architecture and Urban Design (AUD) department—most of whom rely almost exclusively on their salaries as academic workers, particularly international students, who are additionally burdened with several work restrictions—the discrepancy between wage and rent means that the precarity of a career in architecture scholarship is experienced well before they receive their diplomas. (To put this situation in perspective, the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Westwood, the neighborhood surrounding UCLA, is $2,995, about 64 percent more than the average UC academic worker’s salary). “The strike truly felt like it was 50 years in the making,” said second-year AUD PhD student Adam Lubitz, drawing from his own knowledge as a historian to reflect on present conditions. “This has been building steadily since UC started charging tuition during Governor Reagan's first term in 1970.”
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.