UC Student-Workers Union calls for higher TA salaries

She’s gone to multiple public colleges, she’s done it without parental support, and she’s going to pay for it the rest of her life.

Three years into her graduate study at UCLA, 45-year-old teaching assistant Nikki Hozack is $200,000 in loan debt.

Hozack, a graduate student in the Luskin School of Public Affairs, enrolled at UCLA with about $12,000 in savings. But, when cancer diagnoses fell upon her grandmother, 4-year-old niece and close friend during Hozack’s first year at UCLA, her savings depleted in the form of trips to hospitals, relatives’ homes and funerals.

On her current TA salary, she said she lives paycheck to paycheck. And until she was offered a job as a graduate student researcher on Thursday, she didn’t know how she would get by this summer.

Hozak is one of about 12,000 academic student employees in the University of California Student-Workers Union, Local 2865 of the United Auto Workers. The union recently launched a video campaign to rally support for higher TA salaries, in anticipation of upcoming systemwide negotiations with the UC Office of the President.

The UC is also currently in negotiations with the union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, regarding the pay and pension of UC workers after their contracts have expired.

The union uses collective bargaining, which consists of discussions between employees and their employer to regulate working conditions, to negotiate salaries and other issues with the UC, said Dianne Klein, a UC spokeswoman. Since 2010, academic student employees have received 2 percent increases in their wages each school year, Klein said.

Concern about UCLA’s and the entire UC’s TA salaries is neither new nor limited to the university’s graduate students.

In June, the UC Academic Council adopted a report that encouraged the UC system to increase financial offers to graduate students to preserve the competitiveness of the institution.

UCLA TAs currently earn about $2,000 a month for 50 percent appointment, while TAs at other top-choice universities such as the University of Southern California or Stanford University made about $2,100 or $2,800 a month for the same work time, according to the universities’ websites.

A survey of graduate students reported by the UC Office of the President in 2010 also cited trends in the decreasing competitiveness of the University’s offers of financial support from 2007 to 2010, relative to top-choice non-UC universities.

State funds constitute almost 90 percent of academic student employee salaries, Klein said. Other sources, such as tuition, fees and federal funds provide the rest of the money.

“Almost all of (the money) comes from state funds, and the University has had cutbacks the last five to six years in over a billion dollars,” Klein said. “We have been cutting back and cutting back and (many) non-union employees haven’t had raises for two years.”

But members of the union argue that their salaries are not competitive.

“If we don’t give enough money to graduate students for their work, they’ll go to University of Texas, Stanford or USC,” said Cody Trojan, a graduate student in political science and a member of the union who helped organize the video campaign. “(The UC has) been telling us that (there are not enough funds) for the last 10 years.”

When Carlos Rivas, a graduate student in art history, began working as a TA this year, he said he had to sell his car because he didn’t think he could afford its extra costs.

Rivas now spends time busing from Koreatown to Westwood four to five days a week.

“We’re only getting the bare minimum (in salary),” Rivas said. “There’s no safety net.”

Other graduate students, however, said their potential salaries did not factor into their decisions to attend or stay at UCLA.

Ben Smith, an economics graduate student, said he did not base his decision to come to UCLA on how much he would be paid as a TA. Smith was not allowed to be a TA this year because he is a first-year student, but said he expects to work as one in the future.

“When you think about what school you’re going to go to, you think about the long-term ranking of the school,” Smith said. “You choose to go to the best school (academically).”

Another graduate student, Steve Palley, said he chose to study political science at UCLA over Duke University in North Carolina because of UCLA’s location and strong department. He added that he thinks students should know their salaries are not going to be high, especially if they are pursuing a less profitable profession.

“You go to Wall Street – not graduate school – if you want to make money,” Palley said.

The current TA contract will expire Sept. 30 before negotiations for the new agreement begin this June. In the meantime, Trojan said the union plans to organize academic departments to join the campaign and to continue publicizing its cause through videos.