Dr. Nicky Pitsavas has worked at the University of California, Riverside’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) center for almost eight years. However, after years of what they described as being overworked and mistreated, they had enough, and Dr. Pitsavas made the hard decision to quit their job as a clinical psychologist.
On International Workers Day, in solidarity with The American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Local 3299 (AFSCME 3299), Dr. Pitsavas and other members of the University Professional and Technical Employees-Communications Workers of America 9119 (UPTE-CWA 9119) gathered on the UCR campus to demand that the UC end its hiring freeze and unfair labor practices.
With departments already facing extreme staffing shortages, these hiring freezes could not come at a worse time for CAPS. Dr. Pitsavas shared that two clinicians are leaving with them, “leaving [CAPS] with five openings. They are not going to provide more support for my colleagues who are left behind. They are just going to burden them more, and they can’t hire anyone.”
“We’re asking for just fair salaries, fair benefits, fair treatment, safe workplace conditions and basic human things. [The UC] could do it; this place would be much better. They portray this image that they are a wonderful place where people have great social mobility. But in the meantime, they are an oppressive sub-system,” explained Dr. Pitsavas.
According to James Anderson, an executive board member of the Riverside chapter of the University Council – American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) Local 1474, May Day’s origins “can be traced back to the late nineteenth century labor movement in the US, specifically workers here organizing, mobilizing and striking for an eight-hour work day without a reduction in pay.”
Anderson explained that every year, on May 1, workers worldwide gather on International Workers’ Day, or May Day, to show solidarity and support with workers and unions. Recognized as a “labor day” holiday in the rest of the world, May Day, despite its historical significance, is not a nationally recognized holiday in the United States (U.S.). Instead, the U.S. celebrates Labor Day separately from the rest of the world in September.
Professor Dylan Rodríguez, a Distinguished Professor for the UCR department of Black Study who spoke at the picket line, described May Day as “celebration of workers and laborers’ historic struggles to win compensation, to vindicate and defend their rights against incursions from managers and exploitative employers … May Day is a really important day because it suggests the possibility of a world in which workers make the decisions, where workers govern.”
He holds the notion that “it’s a responsibility of anybody who avows solidarity and affinity with people who are fighting for basic standards of life and security to show up.”
As a member of the university faculty, Professor Rodríguez believes that the “bare minimum the faculty can do is to express physical and political solidarity with the strike, because the workers are the university. It’s not about the administrators. It’s not about the managers; it’s about the workers and the students.”
From being overworked to being undervalued and overlooked, Dr. Pitsavas described a myriad of things that “created a toxic environment and unhealthy place to come to work,” leading them to quit their job.
“This is not just my experience. Many of my colleagues are too afraid to speak up, and I’ve sometimes tried to be their voice … It is not only one clinician, a lot of my colleagues wish they could leave, they just can’t right now,” shared Dr. Pitsavas.
Leaving their job as a clinical psychologist was not an option for Dr. Pitsavas until January, when their graduate school student loans were discharged, allowing them to “get out of the cage.”
Dr. Pitsavas explained that their job as a clinical psychologist at CAPS “was affecting me, my home life and to be honest, I deserve better. I hope we now have a new person who seems to be honestly committed to changing the culture and environment.”
After spending almost eight years serving the UCR student body, Dr. Pitsavas struggled with their decision to leave. “This is where I wanted to work. I didn’t apply anywhere else. I stuck with it until I came in, and from the beginning, I realized that this department was not at all what I had hoped for or expected,” expressed Dr. Pitsavas.
Dr. Pitsavas questioned how a workforce that is “getting mistreated, burdened, in some cases, abused, disregarded and invalidated” is supposed to adequately provide mental health support to UCR’s student body.
They continued, sharing that “the UCR student body in particular is not a privileged community … We have students struggling to survive. They are so resilient. They face so much adversity on many levels. As a mental health provider, I wanted to be here to provide them with support … That’s who I wanted to help, and that’s who most of my colleagues at the counseling center want to help.”
Looking to the future, Dr. Pitsavas hopes that the environment at UCR will change: “I feel like my soul will be completely dead [if I keep working here], so I’m not going to be here to see it, but I hope it changes, because you guys have a lot of talent among the clinicians, and your university is bleeding good talent out.”
Dr. Pitsavas encouraged the student body to “remain curious and aware,” and to come out to support the unions striking on campus. “If students turned out in big numbers supporting the union, the university would not be doing what it tries to do, which is to write us out … if students mobilize more … it would make a huge difference. Look at how small we are now. Many [workers] can’t come anymore. They can’t afford it, but [students] have the power.”
Professor Rodríguez echoed similar sentiments, emphasizing that student solidarity is crucial to May Day. He expressed, “I’m really happy to see the number of students who have come through and joined the picket line. I think this gives us a sense of how to build on expressions of solidarity so that we can see people who work at the campus, people who teach at the campus, and people who study there, all existing together, moving together, and supporting each other. That’s true solidarity.”
