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 — the largest of its kind in the nation — at the prestigious state system.
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 — the largest of its kind in the nation — at the prestigious state system.
The strike disrupted classes at all 10 of the university system’s campuses. 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 contracts would go through May 31, 2025.
“In addition to incredible wage increases, the tentative agreements also include expanded benefits for parent workers, greater rights for international workers, protections against bullying and harassment, improvements to accessibility, workplace protections, and sustainable transit benefits,” Tarini Hardikar, a member of the union bargaining team at UC Berkeley, said in a news release Friday.
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.
