California’s university workers are taking to the picket line

Some 48,000 teaching assistants, researchers, graders, and other student employees in the University of California system walked off the job this week, in America’s biggest strike of the year. It’s also the largest strike of higher-ed academic workers in US history, per union leaders – and there’s no end in sight.

🪧 A deeper dive… The UC student workers are striking for expanded health and childcare benefits, as well as a minimum salary of $54,000. Which is more than double their current average of ~$24,000.

But school officials say these demands aren’t workable. They countered with a new contract containing salary increases of 7% in the first year, and 3% in subsequent years.

• While this back-and-forth plays out, UC campuses are still open to all ~300,000 students. Some classes are already experiencing disruptions less than a month before final exams.

📈 Zoom out: If America was an umpire, we’d be hearing strike calls left and right. More and more workers across a wide range of industries are taking to the picket lines, seeking pay raises to keep up with inflation while America’s tight job market reduces their risk of being replaced, per the WSJ.

There were 180 strikes involving ~78,000 workers in the first six months of this year, up from 102 with 26,500 workers over the same period a year ago, per a strike tracker from Cornell University.