California Strike by 48,000 Academic Workers Flexes UAW’s Muscle

About 48,000 academic workers across the prestigious University of California system walked off the job this week, backed by a union better known for representing assembly-line workers than teaching assistants and laboratory researchers — the United Auto Workers.

The UAW called the UC strike the largest university labor action in U.S. history. But for some like Priya Shukla, 32, a PhD candidate in environmental science and policy at the University of California at Davis, the union’s origins came as a surprise.

“I always thought the ‘A’ was ‘academic,’” said Shukla, who has been text and phone banking this week. But indeed the UAW ...