“没有我们，整个系统就会崩溃”：波士顿大学毕业生工人罢工导致阶级混乱
【中美创新时报2024 年 3 月 26 日波士顿讯】（记者温友平编译）波士顿大学约 3,000 名研究生工人周一举行罢工，争取提高工资和福利，学生们表示，这次罢工导致波士顿最大的高等教育机构的课程和其他学术工作受到严重干扰。《波士顿环球报》记者达纳·格伯（Dana Gerber）和通讯员埃莎·瓦利亚（Esha Walia）对此作了下述报道。
包括工人、本科生和参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦（Elizabeth Warren）和众议员阿亚娜·普雷斯利（Ayanna Pressley）等支持者在内的数百人聚集在一起，参加中午集会，发起停工行动。周一的大风天气并没有阻止示威者，他们举着挂满学校吉祥物小猎犬的标语，标语包括：“如果我们不能吃饭，我们就无法教学”和“BU：一分钱一分货”。
“罢工确实是一个艰难的选择，”代表波士顿大学研究生工人的服务雇员国际工会 Local 509 主席戴夫·弗利 (Dave Foley) 说。 “教育质量将会受到影响，但没有人比与学生一起工作的实际人员更关心这一点。”
罢工预计将持续到工会与大学签订合同为止，但目前尚不清楚的是，该大学 37,000 多名学生受到的干扰程度如何——其中许多学生依靠研究生来教授课程和科学实验室，为他们的成绩评分。 测验，并回复他们通过电子邮件发送的询问。
“如果没有我们，”机械工程研究生兼研究员尼昆杰·凯坦（Nikunj Khetan）表示，“整个系统就会崩溃。”
一名大学发言人周一下午表示，现在对罢工是否导致课程取消以及有多少课程取消“进行评估还为时过早”。 发言人雷切尔·拉帕尔·卡瓦拉里奥 (Rachel Lapal Cavallario) 表示，学校“担心罢工对教学、研究和数千名其他学生的生活的影响，我们正在努力尽量减少这种干扰。”
教务长办公室表示，各部门可以在罢工期间安排“替代工人”。
然而，一些本科生周一告诉《波士顿环球报》，他们的讨论部分——由助教或研究员主持的补充班级会议——被取消了。
新生雷亚·卡扎卡(Rhea Khazzaka)就是这样的情况，她上午11点15分走进宏观经济学讨论区，发现她的助教满怀歉意地通知大约20名学生，他将举行罢工，不得不无限期取消会议。
现在，商科专业的卡扎卡不确定她定于本周五举行的期中考试的情况。她说，通常由助教或研究员负责监考。
“他一直是帮助我理解这些概念的人，”她谈到她的导师时说道。“所以你可以看出他很抱歉，因为他对我们很有帮助，但与此同时，他知道他需要继续下去，帮助每个处于他处境的人。”
生物医学工程专业大三学生劳拉·科隆 (Laura Colón) 表示，由于罢工，她的一个实验室课程通常持续近三个小时，但由于罢工而缩短至 90 分钟。她的一门课的讨论部分也被取消了。这使得通常在这些会议期间举行的测验——占她成绩的 10%——陷入了困境。科隆说，她的教授还告诉全班同学，目前作业不会评分。
她说，“全班同学都非常支持”这次罢工。
周一的罢工之前，该大学与波士顿研究生工人工会就第一份合同进行了九个月的谈判，该工会于 2022 年成立工会。谈判桌上的问题包括工资、医疗保健和牙科保险，以及其他福利，例如儿童保育和福利。公共交通援助。
周一最常被提及的不满之一是博士生的津贴，据工会称，目前每周工作 20 小时，每年的津贴在 27,000 美元至 40,000 美元之间。 据称，工会正在寻求合同第一年约 62,000 美元的年度津贴； 学校表示，它以略高于 42,000 美元的价格进行反击。（根据 BU 的数据，从今年秋季开始的本科生学费和杂费估计为每名学生 90,207 美元。）
波士顿大学表示，它正在真诚地讨价还价，还提出将非博士每小时工的最低工资从 15 美元提高到 18 美元，允许 6 岁或以下的儿童加入博士生的健康保险计划，并创建 据学校称，为陷入危机的研究生提供 5 万美元的“帮助基金”。
大学发言人卡瓦拉里奥表示：“我们仍然致力于通过谈判改善研究生的生活，并希望这一过程能够迅速结束罢工。”
此次罢工正值劳工运动（尤其是高等教育领域）的紧张时期。随着生活成本（尤其是新英格兰地区）的增加，从图书馆员到驻地助理再到篮球运动员等团体正在组建工会。
私人机构的研究生工作者直到最近几年才被允许组织起来——这是 2016 年国家劳动关系委员会一项裁决的结果。从那时起，毕业生工人罢工越来越多地发生在全国各地的校园，其中包括 2022 年伍斯特克拉克大学的一场罢工。
出席周一集会的人包括波士顿民主党人、劳工运动的直言支持者、波士顿大学前学生普雷斯利，他称此次行动是“全国高等教育工作岗位减少和恶化的缩影”。
“我们不可能把学生放在第一位，而把研究生放在最后，”普莱斯利说。两年后，她为了养家糊口而离开了波士顿大学。
在工会 Instagram 账户上发布的简短采访中，同为民主党人的沃伦敦促大学参与谈判。
沃伦说：“我希望波士顿大学管理部门能够坐下来，与那些在大学里辛勤工作的人们真诚地讨价还价。”
该大学表示，下一次谈判会议定于周三和 4 月 1 日举行。但即使在短期内，罢工也会扰乱学生的学术生活。
艺术与环境科学专业的凯瑟琳·安妮(Katherine Anne)表示，她得知两名教授将介入教授她的定量建模课程的实验室部分，该课程通常由两名助教教授，她的这一举动相当于跨越纠察线。
“这是一个非常奇怪的地方，因为我当然不想支持工贼，”她说，“但我也需要接受教育，而且我的成绩也取决于它。”
她说，她的另一门课程，离散数学，由一名博士生教授，更加不确定，并补充说她的成绩已从在线门户网站中删除。她周一出现在讨论区，“房间里没有人。”
“所有在罢工前谈论过这件事的研究生都提到，他们不想在这件事上伤害我们，我说，‘但你必须这样做，’”安妮说。 “BU 改变的唯一方法是捐赠者或家长打电话给 BU 并询问，‘你到底在做什么？’”
题图：罢工的研究生聚集在波士顿大学马什广场举行集会。JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
附原英文报道：
‘Without us this whole system just collapses’: BU graduate workers strike causes class disruptions
By Dana Gerber and Esha Walia Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent,Updated March 25, 2024
About 3,000 graduate student workers at Boston University went on strike Monday, fighting for improved pay and benefits in a labor action that students said resulted in myriad disruptions to classes and other academic work at Boston’s largest higher education institution.
A crowd of hundreds, including workers, undergraduate students, and supporters such as Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Ayanna Pressley, gathered for a noon rally launching the work stoppage. Monday’s blustery weather didn’t deter the demonstrators, who toted signs bedecked with terriers, the school’s mascot, and slogans including: “We can’t teach if we can’t eat” and “BU: You get what you pay for.”
“It’s a really hard choice to go on strike,” said Dave Foley, president of Service Employees International Union Local 509, which represents the BU grad student workers. “There will be disruption to the quality of education, but nobody cares more about that than the actual people who work with the students.”
With the strike poised to continue until the union wins a contract with the university, what remained unclear was the extent of the disruption to the university’s 37,000-plus students — many of whom depend on graduate students to teach their classes and science labs, grade their quizzes, and respond to their emailed queries.
“Without us,” said Nikunj Khetan, a mechanical engineering graduate student and researcher who was striking, “this whole system just collapses.”
A university spokesperson said Monday afternoon it was “too early to make an assessment” on whether the strike had led to canceled classes, and if so, how many. The spokesperson, Rachel Lapal Cavallario, said the university is “concerned about the strike’s impact on teaching, research, and the lives of thousands of other students, and we are working to minimize that disruption.”
Departments can arrange for “replacement workers” amid the strike, according to the Office of the Provost.
However, several undergraduate students told the Globe on Monday that their discussion sections — supplementary class meetings led by a teaching assistant or fellow — were canceled.
That was the case for freshman Rhea Khazzaka, who walked into her 11:15 a.m. macroeconomics discussion section to find her apologetic teaching fellow informing the group of about 20 students that he was going on strike and would have to cancel the meeting indefinitely.
Now, Khazzaka, a business major, isn’t sure about the status of her midterm exam, which is scheduled for this Friday. Teaching assistants or fellows are typically the ones who proctor them, she said.
“He’s always been someone who’s helped me with the concepts,” she said of her teaching fellow. “So you could tell he was sorry, because he’s so helpful to us, but at the same time, he knew he needed to go on with it and help everyone in his situation.”
Laura Colón, a junior biomedical engineering major, said one of her lab sessions, which typically last nearly three hours, was shortened to 90 minutes due to the strike. And the discussion section for one of her classes was also canceled. That leaves the quizzes that are usually held during those meetings — and count for 10 percent of her grade — in limbo. Her professor also told the class its homework would go ungraded for now, Colón said.
“The whole class was really supportive” of the strike, she said.
Monday’s strike follows nine months of negotiating a first contract between the university and the Boston Graduate Student Workers Union, which unionized in 2022. On the bargaining table are issues of pay, health care and dental coverage, and other benefits, such as child care and public transportation assistance.
Among the most oft-cited grievances on Monday was stipend pay for PhD students, which currently clocks in somewhere between $27,000 and $40,000 per year for 20 hours of work a week, according to the union. The union is seeking an annual stipend of about $62,000 for the first year of the contract, it said; the school said it countered with a little over $42,000. (Undergraduate tuition and fees beginning this fall are an estimated $90,207 per student, according to BU.)
BU, which says it is bargaining in good faith, has also offered to raise the minimum wage to $18 from $15 for hourly non-PhD workers, allow children age 6 or under to be added to the health insurance plans of PhD students, and create a $50,000 “help fund” for grad students in crisis, according to the school.
“We remain committed to improving the lives of our graduate students through negotiations and hope that process will bring the strike to an end quickly,” said Cavallario, the university spokesperson.
The strike comes amid a charged time for the labor movement, particularly in higher education. Groups ranging from librarians to resident assistants to basketball players are forming unions as the cost of living, particularly in New England, increases.
Graduate student workers at private institutions have only been allowed to organize in recent years — the result of a 2016 National Labor Relations Board ruling. Since then, graduate worker strikes have increasingly come to campuses nationwide, including one at Clark University in Worcester in 2022.
Among those present at Monday’s rally was Pressley, a Boston Democrat, an outspoken supporter of the labor movement, and a former BU student who called the action “a microcosm of the decline and deterioration of higher ed jobs across this country.”
“There is no way we are putting students first by putting grad workers last,” said Pressley, who left BU after two years to support her family.
In a brief interview posted to the union’s Instagram account, Warren, also a Democrat, urged the university to come to the table.
“I want the BU administration to sit down and bargain in good faith with the people who are doing a lot of the hard work here at the university,” Warren said.
The university said the next bargaining sessions are scheduled for Wednesday and April 1. But even in the short term, the strike is roiling students’ academic lives.
Katherine Anne, an arts and environmental science major, said she learned that two professors would step in to teach the lab component of her quantitative modeling course, normally taught by two teaching assistants, an action she amounts to crossing the picket line.
”It’s just a very weird place to be in because, of course, I don’t want to support scabbing,” she said, “but I also need to get an education, and also, my grade is dependent upon it.”
Another of her classes, discrete math, which is taught by a PhD student, is even more uncertain, she said, adding her grades were removed from an online portal. She showed up for a discussion section Monday, “and no one was in the room.”
“All of the grad students that have talked about it prior to the strike mentioned that they didn’t want to hurt us in this, and I was like, ‘But you have to,’” Anne said. “The only way BU is going to change is if donors or parents call BU and are like, ‘What on earth are you doing?’”
