Happy Pi Day! More than a week ago, ASEs passed a major supposal to the university’s side of the bargaining table regarding a new staffing and compensation structure to address the unique needs of undergraduate teaching in the EECS department. Today, the university was supposed to pass back their response. Unfortunately, discussion surrounding the university’s proposal to make all undergraduate ASEs—including TAs—hourly workers took up the vast majority of the time.
So let’s talk about the idea of hourly TAs. The university wants to turn undergraduate TAs into hourly workers like tutors and readers. What that would mean is that TAs would have to log the number of hours they work each week in CalTime and get paid every two weeks based on the amount they work. TAs would no longer receive a fixed salary each month. Here is why I and many other ASEs oppose this proposal:
- This is a distraction: The primary purpose of these negotiations is to increase staffing in the EECS/DS departments. ASEs do not believe that these negotiations are the appropriate venue to be proposing an unproven model where TAs are shifted to being hourly workers. For decades—across this department and every other department across the state—the standard has been that people doing TA work are paid on a salaried basis. The issue with our departments is that there are not enough TAs, not that our TAs receive the same paycheck every month.
The university seems to view hourly appointments as a potential way to cut costs in the departments. While ASEs are willing to work with the university on tuition remission and wage increases to offer some savings, we do not see a good reason to save money in this particular way. If the university would like to pay TAs less, it should simply propose that at the bargaining table so that we can have an honest discussion on costs and compensation. - Stability: Many TAs during and outside of the bargaining session said they value the stability of a monthly salary. Receiving the same paycheck each month simply makes planning our lives easier. Switching to hourly work would mean that a uGSI who depends on their salary to support themself would find trouble making ends meet around the holidays.
We should acknowledge that current readers and tutors lack this stability. ASEs are open to proposals that would increase the amount of stability for these workers. However, we do not see the lack of stability for readers and tutors as a good reason to decrease the amount of stability for TAs. - Failure to meaningfully address overwork: The university claims that, by switching to an hourly model, people can be better compensated for overwork by logging the number of hours they work each week. During the bargaining session, ASEs shared that in many EECS courses—but by no means all of them—there is an implicit or explicit instruction to hourly employees to not log more hours than they are appointed for. Several noted skepticism that the university’s hourly model would actually remedy overwork given that hourly work has not been able to meaningfully prevent the overwork and undercompensation of tutors and readers in the departments.
The truth is that there are many ways to address overwork both for salaried workers and hourly workers. ASEs are committed to exploring every method to address overwork for every worker, and we will continue to emphasize that the best way to address overwork is simply to hire more workers. ASEs have also proposed an expedited overwork process and better education on workers’ rights to improve workers’ knowledge of how they can remedy overwork. These measures—while imperfect—will do far more to address overwork than changing when and how TAs are paid. And they won’t threaten the stability of TA appointments either. - Inconvenience: Logging every hour you work is cumbersome. CalTime is a frequently broken system and is more cumbersome for TAs appointed at higher workloads. While this is less important than the other points, TAs do not want to be forced onto CalTime.
This is far more than I ever wanted to discuss about this proposal to make TAs salaried workers. I hope that in future bargaining sessions we can spend more time on how we grow the size of the staffing pie rather than how to slice it and serve it.
We are also pleased to announce that progress has been made on the issue of summer 375 pedagogy courses. Due to ASEs making this an issue at the bargaining table and including it in our supposal, a fire has been lit under the department to resolve this issue. According to Professor John DeNero, the current tentative idea is to offer the course over the summer and provide a tuition reimbursement to first-time TAs who are enrolled in the course.
Upcoming bargaining sessions:
- Wednesday, March 15
- Pre-caucus: No room available :'(
- Bargaining session: 4:10-5 p.m. in Soda 320
- Post-caucus: 5-6 p.m. in Soda 380
- Thursday, March 16
- Pre-caucus: 9:30-10:10 a.m. in Soda 380
- Bargaining session: 10:10 a.m.-1 p.m. in Soda 380
- Post-caucus: 1-2 p.m. in Soda 380
- Friday, March 17
- Pre-caucus: 9:30-10:10 a.m. in Soda 373
- Bargaining session: 10:10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. in Soda 373
- Post-caucus: 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in Soda 511
You can also join the bargaining sessions via Zoom at https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/95216694463. Caucuses are not accessible via this Zoom. If you are an ASE who would like to join the caucuses virtually, please let me know and we will send you a special Zoom link.
In solidarity,
Gabe Classon
CS 61A uGSI