Strike News: Additional Developments - Part 9 (Tentative Deal Reached)

News reports and statements from the union locals involved in the student-worker strike indicate that a settlement has been reached with the help of the mediator - Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. The deal will have to be ratified in a vote next week, which seems likely. Tweets and statements from the union leaders indicate that there will be a push to "sell" the contract to the membership. 

An overall costing out of the contract is not available at this time. Some will come from state funds and some will come from research grants. As we noted in a prior posting, UC president Drake at a Regents meeting suggested that the original demands would cost on the order of $2 billion/year when fully implemented (split between the two sources of revenue).* The headline numbers in news accounts suggest the settlement would be about a third of that.

Another feature of the proposed deal is its duration which runs to May 31, 2025, i.e., a duration notably shorter than the five-year deal reached earlier with postdocs and researchers. To the extent UC wanted a long period of labor peace, it got more of it from the earlier contract than the new deal. 

From the LA Times: In a major breakthrough in the five-week strike that shut down classes and unleashed grading turmoil, the University of California and the union leadership representing 36,000 graduate student workers reached a tentative labor agreement Friday that would boost their pay and improve benefits. If approved by members, the agreement will resolve what had been the nation’s largest-ever strike of academic workers — 48,000 teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and postdoctoral scholars across the UC system’s 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. All sides hailed the agreement as a historic step that will potentially transform graduate student education and working conditions nationally.

The tentative agreement would give graduate student workers in two United Auto Workers bargaining units an increase in minimum pay from about $23,250 to about $34,000 for nine months of part-time work. The unions had demanded doubling their pay to $54,000 for 12 months — but union leadership agreed to take the offer to their members for ratification. Rafael Jaime, president of UAW 2865, which represents 19,000 teaching assistants, tutors and other graduate student instructors, said the ratification vote would take place from next Monday through Friday. His members, along with 17,000 graduate student researchers in the recently formed SRU-UAW, will remain on strike until and unless they ratify the agreement. He said he is “proudly” recommending ratification. Jaime said that union members did not win everything they demanded but that the agreement would give the lowest-paid researchers an 80% pay boost over the life of the contract, which would be effective until May 31, 2025...

“I would like to thank Mayor Steinberg, and negotiators for both the University and the UAW, for coming together in a spirit of compromise to reach this tentative agreement. This is a positive step forward for the University and for our students, and I am grateful for the progress we have made together,” UC President Michael V. Drake said in a statement...

“The union fought hard to ensure that the university’s graduate students make a living wage at every campus community. They achieved a new national standard for their members,” Steinberg said. “President Drake’s leadership is a model for other universities throughout the country. This agreement represents a fundamental transformation for graduate level higher education.” ...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-16/after-strike-uc-grad-students-tentative-agreement.

Exactly what role Steinberg played is unlikely to be known, at least until the ratification vote is over. Although such matters may be discussed by the Regents, they typically review issues of collective bargaining behind closed doors.

From the New York Times:

...Gov. Gavin Newsom, in an interview, said he was “relieved” by the deal, but called the labor friction “a preview of things to come” as the economy softens. A state budget agreement this year that guaranteed at least five years of annual increases to U.C. funding will most likely pay for the added costs of the new contracts, he said. “I’m pleased,” Mr. Newsom said. “I don’t expect, and hope not to see, a tuition increase.”...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/us/university-of-california-strike-deal.html.

You can read Newsom's remarks as indicating that he will not provide extra revenue to UC to pay for the deal, in part because he doesn't want to set a precedent for other state unions. And he doesn't want to see a bump in tuition to pay for it, either, for all the obvious political reasons.

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/11/student-worker-strike-drags-on.html.

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