Agreement signed between the University of California and striking workers

The University of California and its 36,000 assistant students and other academic staff reached an agreement Friday on higher wages and benefits. which could end the largest strike of its kind in the country at the famous public school.

The strike disrupted classes on all 10 campuses of the university system. Before the strike is finally over, the agreement still has to be signed.

Some workers could see increases of up to 66% over the next two years, according to the bargaining units. Contracts would be in effect until May 31, 2025.

“In addition to incredible pay increases, the preliminary agreements also include expanded benefits for parent workers, greater rights for international workers, protections against bullying and harassment, accessibility improvements, workplace protections and sustainable transit benefits.” Tarini Hardikar, a member of the union negotiation team at UC Berkeley, said in a press release Friday.

Take a look at:

The pay raises and benefits could affect more than just California. Since the 1980s, colleges and universities have increasingly relied on faculty and graduate student staff to teach and conduct research that a tenured faculty used to do, but without the same pay and benefits.

In a press release on Friday, University of California President Michael V. Drake said: “These agreements will make our graduate student employees among the most supported in public higher education.”

LOS ANGELES (@AP) — University of California workers reach a tentative agreement to end the strike after 32 days; contract is now being voted on.

— Stefanie Dazio (@steffdaz) December 17, 2022

“If approved, these contracts will honor their critical work and allow us to attract the best academic talent from across California and around the world.”

William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions at Hunter College in New York, said the 32-day UC strike was the largest strike by academic workers in higher education .

The strike at UC, like the others, is on “providing guidance to indicate that strikes are very powerful means of achieving goals”, he said.

The agreement comes just a few weeks after the UC system reached a similar deal with graduate workers and academic researchers, who make up about 12,000 of the 48,000 union members who walked off their jobs and walked on picket lines on Nov. 14.

A statement from United Auto Workers Local 5810 says this agreement will increase wages by up to 29% and provide more family leave, child care subsidies and longer tenures to ensure job security.

In front of @CivilEats I wrote about how students at the University of California have taken control of the dining space to feed anyone who wants a free meal, and what that can tell us about food sovereignty and the campuses’ biggest challenges https://t.co/Fw2zRjKFYj

— Ellen O’Connell Whittet (@oconnellwhitet) December 16, 2022

At their current salary, the academic workers said they couldn’t afford to live in cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Berkeley, where housing costs are rising.

Tim Cain, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Georgia, said the strike was important because of its size and what it could mean for other universities. If the contracts are approved by the graduate workers and researchers, it could lead to similar changes at colleges that compete with UC or where graduate workers try to form unions.

Long-standing changes in American universities have made it more common for graduate students to teach and perform other duties that used to be done by tenured faculty. This has led to an increase in union organizing across the country.

“There is a fundamental shift in who does the academic work in higher education,” said Cain. He also said that graduate student wages have not kept up with inflation and that many are finding it increasingly difficult to get full-time jobs at the faculty.

The strike came at a time when there was more labor action across the country, not only in higher education, but also among workers at Starbucks, Amazon and other places. There was also a flood of graduate student workers at other universities trying to join a union.

This year, graduate student workers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Clark University, Fordham University, New Mexico State University, Washington State University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute all voted to unionise.

Just follow us on Lee Daily for more news like this.