University of California Workers Strike, Demanding Wage Hikes

Academic workers in the University of California system are on strike Monday, demanding higher wages to offset rising housing costs in West Coast cities.

Some 48,000 academic researchers, post-docs, and other student employees plan to picket all nine University of California campuses—from Berkeley to San Diego—in what the union says is the largest higher education strike in US history. The student employees, represented by the United Auto Workers, seek a minimum salary of $54,000 for graduate student workers and $70,000 a year for post-docs, with annual cost-of-living raises.

A union survey found that 92% of graduate workers and 61% of ...