SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The University of California reached an agreement Friday with some 36,000 graduate student teaching assistants and other academic workers for increased pay and benefits that could potentially end a monthlong strike at the prestigious state system.
The strike disrupted classes at all 10 of the university system's campuses and was the largest strike of academic workers in the nation. The agreement still needs to be ratified before the strike officially ends.
The bargaining units said some workers could see raises of up to 66% over the next two years.
The pay hikes and boost in benefits could have an impact beyond California. For several decades, colleges and universities have increasingly relied on faculty and graduate student employees to do teaching and research that had previously been handled by tenured track faculty — but without the same pay and benefits.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg was called to be a mediator in negotiations. This is his second time striking a deal in this context.
"I want to congratulate and thank the University of California and the UAW for today’s historic agreement. Together, the parties reached a principled solution to end a difficult impasse," said Steinberg in a press release. "Even more important, the University, led by President Michael Drake, and the union leadership and membership deserve enormous credit for what they did to transform graduate education in the world’s most dynamic university system."
The UC strike was being closely watched around the country, in part because it is the largest strike of academic workers in higher education, said 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.
The strike at UC, like the others, is "providing guidance to indicate that strikes are very forceful means of accomplishing goals," he said.
The agreement comes weeks after the UC system reached a similar deal with postdoctoral employees and academic researchers who make up about 12,000 of the 48,000 union members who walked off the job and onto picket lines Nov. 14. That agreement will hike pay up to 29% and provide increased family leave, childcare subsidies and lengthened appointments to ensure job security, according to a statement from United Auto Workers Local 5810.
The academic workers had argued they couldn't afford to live in cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego and Berkeley, where housing costs are soaring, with the current salaries.
The strike came at a time of increased labor action nationwide, not just in higher education but among workers at Starbucks, Amazon and elsewhere and a groundswell of unionization efforts among graduate student employees at other universities.
Just this year, graduate student employees at MIT, Clark University, Fordham University, Mexico State University, Washington State University and Worchester Polytechnical Institute all voted in favor of unionization.
___
Watson reported from San Diego.
