Friday, December 4, 1998
Speaks Out
Speaks Out
On Tuesday, teaching assistants at all eight University of
California campuses began their strike to gain union benefits and
collective bargaining rights. Do you support the SAGE/UAW
strike?
"I am familiar with the issues of the strike, and I fully
support the strikers’ efforts. If the TAs really want to prosper in
this university, they need the outside support of a union. They
cannot count on the academic administration here."
Andres Bodrogligeti
Professor
Near Eastern Languages
"I understand the university’s position that grad students are
grad students and profs are profs. But the TAs are teaching a lot
of lower division classes. They’re teaching my Spanish class, and
they’ll teach my English class next quarter. I never see any profs
in these classes. So these TAs have every right to want to be
treated like teachers, like employees."
Karen Lai
First-year
Undeclared
"I think the strike is a good effort to expose what the TAs
believe is wrongdoing. It really doesn’t affect me since I don’t
have any TAs striking. I’d have to lend my support to the strike,
though, because the TAs have the right to show what they believe
in."
Kris Tjon
Third-year
Physiological Science
"They can strike, I don’t care. They can go hang out on a
corner, good for them. But I’m completely against the push for
unionization and collective bargaining. I’ve been a TA and I don’t
like the idea of somebody else deciding for me about my employment
and benefits, especially when it’s a union that depends on the
UAW."
Pierre Lemieux
Graduate Student
Physics
"I have TAs striking and it’s kind of annoying. TAs knew exactly
what they were getting into when they signed contracts to be TAs,
and now they’re breaking those contracts and breaking their
commitment to us students. We’re paying too much stinking money at
UCLA not to have resources like TAs available to us."
Tracy Poindexter
Third-year
Political Science
"I think it’s a valiant effort by the TAs who are trying to
stand up for themselves. But I don’t think the strike is going to
have much effect because, as far as I know, they tried two years
ago and didn’t get much support. Personally, I’m not affected by
the strike because there aren’t a lot of south campus TAs striking.
A lot of them think it’s a joke."
Rishi Desai
Third-year
Microbiology and molecular genetics
Comments, feedback, problems?
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