50 signatures reached
To: the UC Board of Regents
Parents/benefactors of UC students demand a tuition refund for each day missed from UAW strike.
Parents/benefactors of UC students demand a tuition refund for each day missed from UAW strike.
As a parent and or benefactor of a current undergraduate student in the University of California system, I am requesting a tuition refund for each day of the ongoing academic worker strikes in reparation for the disruption of students’ higher education due to the UC Board of Regent’s refusal to meet and engage in good-faith negotiations with the UAW bargaining team.
Over the last several weeks, the refusal on behalf of the Regents to negotiate with workers has negatively impacted students’ academics due to severely decreased access to university resources, classroom expertise, and more.
As a basic tenant of undergraduate education, students are expected to get work done in a timely manner. I, therefore, find it unacceptable that the UC Board of Regents had years to negotiate reasonable terms with all parties, yet failed to do so with any of them; further, I find it reprehensible that they missed each and every contractual deadline with the full knowledge and intent of gambling hundreds of thousands of academic futures against the economic wellbeing of the tens of thousands propping them up–resulting in the November 20, 2022 strike of four UAW locals ensuing in the practical collapse of academic programming spanning all 9 campuses across the broader University of California network.
Why is this important?
The purpose of a strike is to put pressure on the employer. However, as it stands, the UC Board of Regents has nothing to lose.
Parents/benefactors pay the same tuition regardless of how much time and learning students lose if a strike occurs.
Administrators continue to earn their comfortable salaries even if classrooms are empty.
It's a public system, therefore students can't really "take their business elsewhere." The colleges, therefore, have a monopoly.
Students suffer the most, yet they are not part of the conversation. They lose learning. They lose time. Parents/benefactors lose money. We have lost money. We now demand a refund.
We, the parents/benefactors, want students to be in school. We want students to learn. We are paying for it. If the UC Board of Regents does not consider the educational and employment prospects of its students motive enough to reach an agreement, then perhaps a justifiable hit to the UC bottom line will. #WePayToLearn #FairUCNow
How it will be delivered
To be hand-delivered to the UC Board of Regents