USC’s Policies Affecting Parents and Our Holidays, Explained
As you or your coworkers may have experienced, USC is already violating your union contract – the agreement they reached with graduate student workers last December. These violations include unilaterally changing the academic calendar to drastically reduce our time off. Moreover, USC is denying workers hundreds of thousands of dollars in childcare and dependent assistance promised to graduate student workers in our contract.
As workers, we have the power to fight back.
- Join the Majority – become a union member today. Membership is how workers pool our resources and build power to enforce our contract.
- RSVP Now for the “Keep the Promise” Mass Membership Meeting, where hundreds of Graduate Student Workers will rally for our rights and demand USC adhere to the agreement they made with workers.
Holidays
- In the agreement USC made with Graduate Student Workers (GSWs) in our first union contract, GSWs were given paid time off in accordance with the Academic Calendar.
- That arrangement meant six weeks of time off — well-deserved rest for academic workers whose jobs can be extremely demanding.
- However, in early October, USC unilaterally made changes to the Academic Calendar, adding or removing the word “holiday” in an attempt to limit what constitutes time off for Graduate Student Workers. This was done without informing or consulting any workers.
- USC split the Winter Recess Holiday into a Winter Recess (25 calendar days/16 working days) and a Winter Holiday (7 calendar days/5 working days). The Internet Archive link from October 6, 2024 is linked here for reference.
- USC’s change would reduce GSWs paid time off from 6 working weeks to approximately 3 working weeks by effectively making a second Academic calendar for workers.
- This change by USC specifically circumvents the Holidays article of GSW’s union contract and breaks its promise to align graduate student workers with the academic calendar by making unilateral changes to the holiday schedule that only impact graduate student workers’ paid time off.
- This also circumvented any bargaining process by unilaterally changing the calendar to only affect the working conditions of Graduate Student Workers without informing workers of these changes.
Childcare Subsidy
- In the agreement USC made with Graduate Student Workers (GSWs) in our first union contract, USC agreed to provide $1,800 per worker per child each semester as a subsidy to assist with childcare expenses.
- A majority of parents who applied for the Childcare Subsidy in the Fall 2024 semester have been rejected by USC for their application for criteria not specified in the bargaining agreement.
- For example, a criterion cited by USC to deem many parents ineligible for the subsidy is the use of “unlicensed childcare providers” such as nannies and other individual childcare providers — providers that are used by a vast majority of parents in Los Angeles.
- Representatives from USC administration say that they are replying to parents within 10 days, but some parents have been waiting for several weeks to hear back on their applications.
- USC is even delaying providing the subsidy for parents who use USC’s own recommended childcare provider, Bright Horizons, with no clear timeline for approval. Depending on the child’s age, this USC-recommended provider can cost upwards of $2,000 per month for a single child.
Short-Term Hardship Grant
- An additional resource USC agreed to provide GSWs with dependents is the Short-Term Hardship Grant: up to $2,500 per graduate student worker that can be used to offset costs due to unanticipated emergencies or short-term financial hardship.
- USC agreed that this fund can be used to cover medical, dental, and vision expenditures but is not just limited to such expenses.
- Since the fund applications opened on August 1, USC has likely approved only one application for the fund, denying a vast majority of the applicants.
- USC is denying a majority of applications to this fund for reasons not specified in the bargaining agreement, including denying workers on medical payment plans who were unable to pay for medical expenses immediately out-of-pocket.
- Since USC does not allow workers to add dependents to our health insurance plans, a majority of workers are only eligible for insurance plans for their dependents that either have high out-of-pocket costs or have unaffordable monthly premiums. Several GSWs with dependents have spoken about this difficult financial choice, especially as USC is not approving funds to cover either of these financial hardships.