AROUND HIGHER EDUCATION: UCLA grad students to strike

The Daily Bruin LOS ANGELES (U-WIRE) -- It's official. Confirming weeks of rumors and speculations, the graduate student union of the University of California at Los Angeles announced Sunday that it would strike today over UC administrators' refusals to treat them as employees. UCLA's Student Association of Graduate Employees, known as SAGE, along with similar unions at seven other UC campuses, is hoping that this year's strike, the first since 1996, will be more disruptive than past work stoppages. And it just may be. Through their affiliation with the United Auto Workers, SAGE has secured strike benefits -- payments to striking workers to help them financially -- meaning that this strike could last a very long time. "The duration of the strike will certainly be longer than the strikes that we've tried before," said SAGE organizer Connie Razza. Meanwhile, UC administrators have continued to reiterate their position that teaching assistants should not be considered employees because serving as a teaching assistant is integral to graduate students' educational experiences. "We believe that TAs are principally students rather than employees, and thus are not eligible for collective bargaining," UC President Richard Atkinson said in a letter circulated last Monday. Furthermore, Atkinson stressed that it was the university's position that allowing TAs to bargain collectively could "disrupt the collegial relationships between students and faculty that are so critical in graduate work." SAGE organizers had kept the start date of the strike somewhat secret until now, largely because they feared that university administrators would hire replacement workers to take the place of striking TAs. The strike is designed to force UC officials to recognize the graduate students as unionized employees. Administrators would not say whether replacement workers were an option being considered. "I would prefer not to start listing things that we will not do," Chancellor Albert Carnesale said. University officials have said that switching to multiple-choice final exams is being considered as an option to alleviate extra work on professors as a result of the strike. SAGE organizers are not encouraging students to skip class during the strike. Instead, the graduate students are encouraging students to attend classes and see what their classes would be like without TAs there.