Academic workers in the United Auto Workers, across the expansive 10-campus University of California system, have voted by 98 percent for strike authorization over the past week.

A strike date has been set for the coming Monday, November 14, for 48,000 workers, including: 12,000 postdoctoral and academic researchers in Local 5810, who have been working without a contract since September 30; 19,000 tutors, readers and graduate student instructors and assistants in Local 2865, who have been kept on the job after numerous extensions were allowed since the June 30, 2020 contract expiration; and 17,000 grad students in the Student Researchers United (SRU-UAW), which was recognized in December. 

The overwhelming strike authorization is an expression of the desire of workers everywhere to halt decades of attacks on their living and working conditions and crushing 9 percent inflation.

UC workers are part of a powerful global strike wave, which includes 55,000 Ontario education support workers, who are battling the Canadian provincial Ford government. The US strike is also taking place as auto workers, university workers and other workers in the UAW are voting in presidential elections, where Will Lehman, a socialist autoworker running for UAW president, is fighting to give power to the rank and file. 

Academic workers—many of whom have families—are spending the majority of their paltry income on skyrocketing rents, and numerous UC campuses are located in the most expensive cities in California. Many are living hand to mouth, describing horrible living conditions that include health hazards, the inability to afford day care, food insecurity and going without meals. They are demanding an end to their precarious financial situation. 

While claiming there is no money to provide living wages for academic workers, the assets of the UC system stand at $152.3 billion as of the end of the 2021-2022 academic year, according to the UC Office of the President. The largest public institution of higher learning in the world spans the entire state of California, with 10 campuses, five medical centers, one law school, 16 health professional schools, three national laboratories and numerous satellite facilities. 

The University of California is the largest non-governmental employer in the state of California, which, if ranked as an independent country, has one of the largest economies in the world.

The reality is that the academic workers are the cheap labor workhorses that run the massive multibillion-dollar UC system. Workers are in a powerful position to win all of their demands and expand the global fight for wages and improvements. Such a victory, however, requires that workers take control of their struggle from the grips of the UAW apparatus, which has forced its membership to accept decade after decade of wage cuts and concessionary contracts. 

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UAW Grad students are eligible to vote in the election for UAW president. The WSWS has endorsed Will Lehman for UAW president. The deadline to mail in ballots in the UAW election to ensure that they are counted is November 18. If you have not received a ballot, go to uawvote.com and request one immediately. For more information on Lehman’s campaign, visit WillforUAWPresident.org.