UC system, lecturers reach deal, call off strike
SANTA CRUZ >> Classes at UC Santa Cruz continued as scheduled Wednesday morning after UC-AFT called off a planned two-day system-wide strike.
Lecturers and the university came to a tentative agreement on a fiveyear contract at 5:43 a.m. Wednesday, following twoand-a-half years of negotiations, according to Roxy Power, co-chair of the Santa Cruz UC-AFT local. The contract will become official later this week pending a vote by union members.
“The UC lecturers, after two-and-a-half years of painstaking bargaining, proved today that unity is strength,” said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten in a statement. “The lecturers, who teach one-third of the system’s credit classes, secured
a contract that is fair to them and good for their students.”
Negotiations had recently driven lecturers to picket throughout campus in midOctober, and eventually call
for a strike this week. The strike was over claims that the university had gone around the labor union to try and strike a deal with its workers.
The university denied the allegations and rebuked the labor union for authorizing the two-day strike, which was planned for Wednesday and Thursday.
The tentative strike had backing from several outside sources as well as tenured faculty at the university. Broad support threatened widespread class cancellations as well as transportation and delivery issues as local METRO and delivery drivers pledged to not cross the picket line.
Wednesday’s tentative contract agreement evaporated the threat of all logistical issues on campus.
Negotiations centered around three main issues. Lecturers demanded better job security, higher pay compensation and compensation for work done outside of class hours such as helping students with lecture material.
UC-AFT and the lecturers were prepared to go on a general strike if negotiations broke down, but Wednesday’s deal negated the strike possibility.
The new contract encompasses five years where university lecturers will see a $1,500 signing bonus upon approval of the contract. Within 60 days, lecturers will also earn a 7% pay increase.
Currently, lecturers across the UC system earn an average of $71,068 a year, according to UC Spokesperson Ryan King. That initial pay increase would bump the yearly salary of a fulltime lecturer to roughly $76,043 a year.
Average compensation in Santa Cruz is a little different. Fulltime lecturers at UCSC make an average of $57,000 a year, according to Vice President of Organizing Josh Brahinsky. Therefore, lecturers could see their fulltime pay increased to roughly $60,990.
After the first year of the new contract, lecturers will see a pay increase of 1.3%. The next three years of the contract will see a 3% pay increase each year, then a 4% pay increase in the final year of the contract.
In total, lecturers can see up to 23% in pay increases over five years. That would increase the systemwide average to approximately $87,541.44 and the UC Santa Cruz average to approximately $70,212.50 a year.
The new contract also offers more job stability for UC lecturers. While lecturers usually have more stable employment with the university after six years, presix lecturers, those in the first six years of employment at the university, were not afforded that luxury.
Now, pre-six lecturers will receive multiyear appointments after their first year with the university. Part-time lecturers will also be prioritized for assignments over outside hires and higher paid lecturers will not be replaced by counterparts that have a lower hourly rate.
Lastly, the university guarantees more transparency surrounding expected workload and offers all lecturers four weeks of paid leave.
“This is a landmark and transformative achievement. This is the best contract in UC-AFT history and, we believe, among the best for contingent faculty nationwide,” UC-AFT President Mia McIver said in a statement. “We are pleased with how the parties have come together to reach an agreement emphasizing the importance of the role lecturers play at the university.”