Tentative pact for some UC strikers

The huge strike that has gridlocked the University of California for more than two weeks saw movement Tuesday when two of the four groups negotiating with UC reached tentative agreements that would send 12,000 postdoctoral students and academic researchers back to work.

If approved, the agreement, reached after midnight, would make the 7,000 striking postdocs the highest paid postdocs in the country over the five-year life of the contract, said Neal Sweeney, president of the United Auto Workers Local 5810, which represents both groups.

“It's significant,” Sweeney said, noting that the union believes academic workers are largely underpaid and struggling.

The new contracts “are the start of a reconsideration for how university workers are treated across the country.”

Until the offer is ratified, possibly next week, the two groups are expected to stay on the picket line in sympathy with the remaining 36,000 strikers who have not yet reached agreements with UC. Their walkout on Nov. 14 has crippled much of the undergraduate instruction across UC's 10 campuses just ahead of finals.

Still in negotiations are the 19,000 part-time graduate student instructors and teaching assistants who do much of the undergraduate teaching and grading, as well as 17,000 student researchers who are negotiating their first labor contract with the university.

“We're now calling on the university to make serious proposals to those groups,” Sweeney said.

UC officials said Tuesday that the new tentative agreements include fair compensation, job security and paid family leave.

The pacts “are among the best in the country,” Letitia Silas, executive director of UC's labor relations, said in a statement that called the two groups “vital to UC's research activities.”

Postdocs and academic researchers are full-time employees who last year helped the university attract $5 billion in grant money — the most of any university in the country.

Under the agreement, postdocs would see a $12,000 raise by next October — a 20% to 23% increase that would bring salaries up to at least $64,480, Sweeney said. Over five years, the lowest-paid postdocs would see a 57% raise, up from $54,500.

The package includes child care subsidies the union has been seeking for 12 years, as well as public transit passes and twoyear job security — up from one year — that especially helps postdocs from other countries who make up about two-thirds of that group.

The 5,000 academic researchers — the only group of strikers who are staff members, not student workers — would see an overall 29% salary increase, though pay varies according to the type of work they do. This group would also get improved benefits, including eight weeks of fully paid family leave.