University of California Irvine Conflict
On scrolling Twitter, I found a story from the L.A.
Times reporting that 48,000 University of California Irvine academic workers
are striking. Union leaders are demanding better pay and benefits due to the
high cost of living in cities served by the University of California. The
majority of the academic workers, which include researchers, postdoctoral
scholars, and graduate teaching assistants, report being rent burdened, meaning
they spend more than 30% of their income on housing - even those using
university housing.
The strike is billed as the largest at any academic
institution in history. One of the strikers said that the University prides
itself on its world-class research, yet their paychecks do not reflect that prestige.
Graduate students working as teaching assistants and tutors
currently make $24,000 per year. The union wants the base salary to be $54,000
per year. The union is asking for a minimum of $70,000 per year for
postdoctoral workers or about $10,000 more than they currently make.
The very next story I encountered on Twitter was also about
the University of California Irvine. The main story was that according to an
audit, the Chair of the Department of neurological surgery purchased over $400,000
in photography equipment, including 14 cameras and 46 lenses, for personal use with
University funds. Frank P.K. Hsu purchased the equipment using suspicious or
unauthorized means per the audit report. The professor had a photography
business and sold his photos on his personal website and Instagram account for
hundreds of dollars. Hsu was required by the University to repay $404,000 but
was allowed to keep his job. The administrators were lax in overseeing the
suspicious charges, even after a whistleblower report and over several years’
time. If he worked in the private sector, he most assuredly would have been
fired.
The most astonishing part of the story, however, is that
Hsu makes $1.2 million a year. Looking at this situation from a political point
of view, there are a couple of conflicting arguments. Because the state of
California taxpayers fund the university, in part, should the state have
authority to make sure taxpayer funds are not being mismanaged? Should the
university be accountable to the state for the glaring pay disparity between
the professor and the academic workers? Should the university be treated more
like a private sector organization?
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/newsletter/2022-11-16/uc-strike-academic-aides-todays-headlines
Hey Deb I really enjoyed reading your blog post and thought you made some great points!I honestly had not heard about either one of these stories and was interested in reading about it after seeing just the title of your post. I like how you gave a lot of information on the topics and showed all of the facts behind the stories. I think that something should be done about the pay disparities between the two colleges and enjoyed your post on the topic. Overall, great post!
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