I had a similar experience at another UC, where I lectured (and am now a PhD student!) -- and the general thrust here is correct: lecturers are often paid a FTE-equivalent salary that is not much higher than what a graduate student would be paid.<p>That said, there are a few pieces to this that unfortunately didn't make it into the article:<p>1) At that pay rate, the TA would have been expected to work at 50% effort (20h/week) in that position, in order to earn that salary.<p>2) At my UC, a "full-time" load for lecturers is 6 courses per year, or 3 per semester. (This may be different at quarter-system UCs.) That means that a course is considered 1/3 of full-time, not 50%, with an expected time commitment of ~ 13h/week over that same time period.<p>3) Thus from a "compensation for labor" perspective, the hourly rate for the TA is thus about 30% less than the lecturer -- of course, this rests on many assumptions about how much time is actually spent per course -- and the TA is expected to spend quite a bit more time on the course than the lecturer is. (This ignores the work needed to develop a course, of course, but often lecturers are asked to teach already-designed courses.)<p>The kicker, though, is that the TA is probably also getting <i>their tuition covered</i>, an extra benefit worth $7-15k, depending on a student's circumstances, and depending on whether you believe this tuition reimbursement is an accounting gimmick, as some do. If you do include this amount, the TA is indeed paid much more than the lecturer!