Audio Interview from the Picket Line on the Perimeter of UC Riverside Campus: A Conversational Q&A with Tyler Cohen
As expected, a huge cohort of academic workers across the University of California system went on strike earlier today. Postdoctoral scholars and Academic Researchers represented by UAW 5810, academic student employees — Teaching Assistants (TAs), Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs), Tutors and Readers — represented by UAW 2865, and student researchers represented by the recently formed SRU-UAW, all withheld their labor on Monday, November 14.
They did so following UC management’s engagement in a number of illegal unfair labor practices and repeated disregard for proposals made by the unions during months spent trying to negotiate four separate contracts to ensure adequate compensation for employees and dignity in the workplace.
Earlier today, I joined a friend of mine, Tyler Cohen, a PhD student in sociology at the University of California, Riverside, as well as a TA for that department and a member of UAW 2865, on the picket lines on the perimeter of UC Riverside campus, near the area where University Avenue runs into Canyon Crest Drive, for a conversational interview about the strike and (because, why not?) about basketball, with a focus on the early NBA season now underway.
Tyler and I spoke first about the reasons behind the strike, the joint decision by the unions to withhold labor, his personal reasons for honoring the picket, what it felt like for him out their on the picket line, what the UC needs to do to bring the strike to an end, and how interested persons, communities and organizations can show support for and solidarity with the university workers taking the risks associated with their coordinated action.
Spoiler alert: Tyler said folks can find out ways to show support here. Some of those ways include donating to the UAW-UC Academic Workers strike and hardship fund, joining a picket around one of the UC campuses, signing a petition and sending a message to the UC president, signing a letter of support (if you are an undergraduate student in the UC system), and sending an open letter of support for the campaign to communications@uc-uaw.org (if you are part of a UC department or perhaps with another organization, UC-affiliated or otherwise).
Once Tyler and I turned to basketball, we talked about early-season impressions and what teams and players have been most impressive thus far. I asked him about his early All-Star predictions. I posed a question about the Trailblazers and their star guard Damian Lillard — though, hailing from the Portland, Oregon, area, he hardly needed prompting to discuss the Blazers and Lillard. We also spent time discussing two-time NBA champion Kawhi Leonard, who played two years of high school ball for Martin Luther King High School here in Riverside. We touched on Kawhi’s ACL injury and his struggle to come back and play ball for the LA Clippers. We addressed how the Clips have fared so far in his absence, and I asked Tyler about his predictions for the team and for Kawhi going forward, in addition to asking just what it is about the two-time NBA Finals MVP that makes him so lethal on the court. I also asked the striking TA who he thinks is playing at an MVP-level right now and who he predicts will win MVP honors by the time the season is all said and done.
We went on to talk about the lost art of the mid-range, the deep three, who has the best handles in the game (and how the striking doctoral student in sociology conceptualizes handles), who’s the most skilled (and what that means), who in his mind is the GOAT and who he thinks will win the next NBA championship.
Although our focus remained on the NBA, in the main, attentive listeners will catch brief references to widely predicted future lottery picks, namely NBA G League Ignite sensation Scoot Henderson, and the (debatably) 7’4” Frenchman playing for the Metropolitans 92 Parisian ball club, Victor Wembanyama. The conversation also touched on up-and-coming shining stars in women’s college basketball, including the always remarkable Paige Bueckers, 2021 AP Player and Naismith College Player of the Year, sidelined this season by a tragic ACL tear in her left knee suffered in a pick-up game over the summer, and her UConn teammate Azzi Fudd, who’s been ballin’ right out of the gate in the two games Connecticut has played so far.
As we reflected on the interview afterward, Tyler wanted me to qualify what he said about Pelicans forward and physical force to be reckoned with, Zion Williamson. Tyler acknowledged waxing a little hyperbolic and harsh in his commentary, and he would like to underscore that Zion can hoop; he just thinks the 284-pound, 6’6” Duke alum ought not to be the primary option for New Orleans.
You can listen to the entire hour-long conversational interview in audio format below. Please pardon the initial muffled sound and the loud background noise in the beginning, which clears up quickly. Please also excuse the occasional sounds off in the distance provided by the hardworking UC academic employees picketing, rallying, marching and striking. There are a few moments wherein the audio quality isn’t great, but overall it’s definitely decent enough, I think, for listeners to enjoy the questions, commentary and conversation.
And stay tuned, if you will. Waywards will likely post video of the interview, either in full or in clips, in the near future.