UC, Academic Workers Reach Tentative Deal to End Strike

Union academic workers and supporters march and picket at the UCLA campus amid a statewide strike by nearly 48,000 University of California unionized workers in Los Angeles on November 15, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

The University of California (UC) reached a tentative agreement Dec. 16 with 36,000 academic employees that would boost their pay and provide more benefits, after almost five weeks of a strike demanding, in part, pay raises and other benefits amid inflation.

Resulting from the largest academic worker strike in the United States, the agreement would raise the minimum pay for both academic student employees and graduate student workers from about $24,000 to about $34,000, according to UC officials.

The union’s initial offer demanded that the UC more than double the base pay, but union leaders eventually agreed to let their members vote on the offer.

Union academic workers and supporters march and picket at the UCLA campus amid a statewide strike by nearly 48,000 University of California unionized workers in Los Angeles on Nov. 15, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Other notable benefits include providing up to $2,025 in childcare reimbursements per semester and waiving supplemental tuition for nonresidents for up to three years for those who have advanced to candidacy in their graduate degree programs.

UC officials first reached a tentative deal Nov. 29 with 12,000 postdoctoral scholars and researchers on strike, who resumed work this week after ratifying the contract last weekend.

UC President Michal Drake called the most recent deal a “positive step forward” in a Dec. 16 statement.

“If approved, these contracts will honor their critical work and allow us to continue attracting the top academic talent from across California and around the world,” he said.

People take part in a protest outside of the University of California San Francisco medical offices in San Francisco, Nov. 14, 2022. Nearly 48,000 unionized academic workers at all 10 University of California campuses have walked off the job Monday. Jeff Chiu/AP Photo

Ray Curry, president of United Auto Workers—the national labor union representing the graduate students—said the same day that the new contract will help graduate students burdened by California’s high cost of living.

United Auto Workers members are set to vote on ratifying the contract next week, according to union officials. If approved, the contracts will be effective through May 31, 2025.

Union academic workers and supporters march and picket at the UCLA campus amid a statewide strike by nearly 48,000 University of California unionized workers in Los Angeles on Nov. 15, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

More than a dozen academic workers on strike were handcuffed and cited Dec. 14 for disrupting a UC Board of Regents meeting, which was delayed for hours by those refusing to leave the room, according to a Dec. 15 statement by the UC Student-Workers Union.

The strike was launched Nov. 14, after months of negotiation with the UC, by 48,000 researchers and student employees across all 10 UC campuses, which has left some classes without instructors and professors without teaching assistants to grade assignments and end-of-semester exams.

The Council of UC Faculty Associations, a larger agency for faculty organizations across UC campuses, surveyed faculty and found that at least 39,000 student grades for the fall semester have been withheld as of Dec. 17.

About 3,400 graduate student workers at the University of Southern California also filed a petition Dec. 14 to unionize in hopes of negotiating higher pay and better working conditions in the future.