More than 10,000 academic workers at the University of California campuses in the greater Bay Area went on strike Monday morning, a union source said.
The strike at UC Berkeley began at 8 a.m. and included workers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Nearly 10,000 workers at those two institutions walked off the job.
About 2,700 workers at UC Santa Cruz and roughly another 2,700 at the University of California at San Francisco also walked off the job.
The workers, which include post-doctoral students, researchers, fellows, graduate student instructors and others, are alleging unfair labor practices by the university.
“People are really hyped up,” said Samuel Chan, a graduate student instructor in political science at UC Berkeley and a member of the bargaining team.
Across the 10 UC campuses, about 48,000 are on strike. It may be the largest strike at any academic institution ever. The striking workers are represented by the United Auto Workers union.
Chan said he estimates at UC Berkeley over 1,000 workers are on the picket lines, which number eight. Workers will be on strike until the get a fair contract, he said.
Workers are demanding higher wages, as well as cost of living adjustments, free public transit passes, reimbursements for child care, among other changes. Bay Area workers are especially burdened by housing costs, union officials said.
UC Berkeley officials declined to comment, referring the query to the University of California office of President Michael Drake. Drake’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
How about they just fire all those strikers and see if we really need them on the payroll at all. Just maybe it will prove that the UC system can run fine without those workers, and it would help the students, so they don’t have to take out such big loans. Colleges only care about the student’s checkbook.