Voting on employment contract at University of California
2022.12.20 08:20
Voting on employment contract at University of California
Budrigannews.com – On Monday, thousands of academic workers began voting on whether or not to ratify a contract with the University of California and end a 5-week walkout that, according to unions, is the largest work stoppage ever at a U.S. higher education institution.
University and union supporters hailed the proposed contract as a landmark labor agreement that would raise wages and working conditions for public university graduate students and establish a new national standard.
A week after the two sides hired an independent mediator, former state senator and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, to help break the deadlock and broker a deal, the tentative settlement was reached last Friday.
Teaching assistants, researchers, tutors, and other graduate student instructors at all ten UC campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (NYSE:) were among the striking scholars who went on strike on November 14.
They are required to refrain from working until the ratification vote, which runs through Friday, results in the agreement being approved by simple majority.
As the fall semester came to a close, the walkout continued for several weeks, interfering with final exams, study sessions, and paper grading across California’s flagship university system. According to union leaders, the number of employees involved was comparable to that of any previous strike at a U.S. educational institution.
According to the leaders of the two United Auto Workers (UAW) union locals that represent the 36,000 graduate students covered by the deal, the tentative agreement would provide wage increases of up to 66% over the contract’s two-and-a-half-year life.
This month, two additional UAW locals returned to work after ratifying a separate settlement on behalf of 12,000 postdoctoral scholars and researchers.
The United Auto Workers, whose membership has grown to include economic sectors other than the auto industry in recent years, had made achieving living wages a top priority for its academic workers. The union said that many of these workers have been burdened with staggering rent costs and debt on part-time salaries as low as $24,000 per year.
According to the university, the minimum nine-month salary for teaching assistants would increase to $34,000 at other campuses and $36,500 at UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and UCLA by the fall term of 2024 under the proposed agreement.
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The Los Angeles Times reported that critics criticized the tentative pact for giving up on union demands to tie wage gains to housing costs and that critics criticized the deal for giving up on union demands to tie wage gains to housing costs. However, some detractors said the tentative pact fails to meet the living costs grad students face in pricey cities where many UC campuses are located.
