USC Graduate Student Workers held a “last chance picket” event Thursday in hopes of showing the university’s administration that they’re willing to go on strike if their demands are not met.
“I think people think it’s because we kind of hate USC or we hate our jobs, but we really care about our jobs,” said Jackie Johnson, a fifth year PhD candidate in cinema and media studies. “People work tirelessly hours and hours and hours every day in labs on this campus doing really, really critical research that’s at the cutting edge.”
Johnson, who is a member of the union’s bargaining team, said they were on the picket line because their working conditions directly impact “the very learning conditions of the undergraduate student population, and we are trying to make the university better.”
Last February, USC’s graduate student workers voted overwhelmingly to form a union with United Auto Workers. However, the newly formed union, GSWOC-UAW, and the university have been bargaining since April but have yet to come to an agreement. Most recently, the university rejected GSWOC-UAW’s request for an immediate pay increase and a minimum stipend increase from $35,700 to $43,000.
Andrew Stott, dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost for Academic Programs, said the university has already offered “generous raises to a package that is already one of the most competitive in the country.”
According to the MIT living wage calculator, the living wage in Los Angeles County for a person with no dependents is $44,142. A survey done by GSWOC-UAW found that 88% of USC graduate student workers were rent burdened, meaning more than one-third of their income is spent on rent.
“I personally know a lot of friends, peers in my program, who are having to scrounge together whatever source of income they can,” said Rose Nguyen, a second year PhD student in creative writing and literature. “And then on top of that — that insult to injury — our contract stipulates that we can’t even work full time during the [academic] year, which further exacerbates the unaffordability.”
In Johnson’s experience, the lack of discretionary money can make it challenging for graduate students to afford out-of-pocket, extra expenses.
“I’m always kind of at the edge, and the smallest emergency can really kind of push people over into debt,” said Johnson. “So, most recently, I had to pay for neuropsychological testing and I can’t really have enough savings based on what the university pays me to pay for kind of extra expenses like that.”
According to the union, USC pays graduate student workers less than Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, MIT and UCLA, whose graduate students participated in the UC graduate student strike last fall. According to the union, a PhD candidate in the USC physics department would make nearly $10,000 less than their UCLA counterpart for the 2024-2025 academic year.
“I think what [the USC administration] are going to have to realize is that they, like these other institutions, will have to actually improve the working conditions for the graduates,” Nguyen said. “And then it has to be comparable to these institutions.”
But Stott said the comparison of wages did not take into account that USC’s graduate student workers are under contract for 20 hours per week for nine months out of the year, while UCLA’s graduate student workers are contracted for 12 months, which he said accounts for the 25% increase.
Stott also said graduate workers receive health, vision and dental insurance. He said they additionally receive free tuition for up to 36 units, a value of roughly $67,000.
“So, it’s a generous package,” Stott said.
In addition to wage increases, the graduate students are also seeking the creation of an independent arbitration system for harassment and discrimination. The university has pushed for all student complaints to go through its Title IX office.
“USC administration also is not meeting us for our demand on actually having enforceable protections against harassment and bullying and discrimination,” said Nguyen. “They want to route everything through their Title IX office, which is where we know cases go to die.”
Stott said that the university has spent a lot of time building out its discrimination and harassment policy procedures in a way that was “very deliberate and intentional and invokes best-in-class best practices,” and that the union’s proposal could lead to “all kinds of potential issues,” by creating a separate process meant just for graduate students in the union.
“The university believes that we need one process for everybody and that the process we have in place is best in class,” said Stott.
In a video posted to the graduate student workers of USC Instagram page, Kayla Love, a fourth-year PhD candidate in the chemistry department, said she felt “bullied” by the department. When she was six months pregnant and needing to go on parental leave, she said the department told her that if she went on leave, “[she] wouldn’t have enough research to continue into the program.”
Love couldn’t afford the consequences of leaving, which meant losing her student housing, so she continued to work.
Ultimately, the students hope that the picket event shows USC administration that they are ready and willing to go on strike if their demands are not met.
“We are ready to fight for all the things that we care about,” said Anand Balakrishnan, a sixth year PhD candidate in the computer science program. “If USC does not respond to this, then it shows that they’re not necessarily negotiating in good faith.”
However, Stott said that the university feels a strike would be “unnecessary” because of the progress the two parties have made at the bargaining table.
“We’ve had 18 bargaining sessions, we’re meeting weekly for the foreseeable future,” Stott said. “We want to continue to make progress at the bargaining table because the discussions are producing results, and we believe we’ll get there that way.”
At this point in the semester, a strike would be disruptive, but the university said it was preparing for this scenario and held a meeting with faculty this afternoon to discuss preparations.
Update: Quotes have been edited for clarity.