I enjoy the physical process of lab work, am fascinated by the research I’m doing, and believe strongly in the importance of basic research, but nonetheless this week I voted to authorize a strike. I took this step because the UC refuses to recognize our new union, Student Researchers United-UAW, which a supermajority of UC’s 17,000 SRs chose to form. Their refusal is based on a spurious argument that some of us, trainees and fellows who are funded by external grants, are not actually employees.
Allowing some SRs to form a union while denying that right to others would place students in a terrible dilemma, having to decide whether to accept a fellowship that brings prestige and funding, or whether to keep their rights at work.