Postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers returned to work Monday at all ten University Of California campuses after ratifying a labour agreement, but thousands of other graduate students remain on strike.
According to a statement from United Auto Workers Local 5810, the five-year agreement ratified Friday provides pay increases of up to 20%, increased family leave, childcare subsidies, and lengthened appointments to ensure job security.
Postdoctoral and academic researchers make up approximately 12,000 of the 48,000 union members who walked off the job and onto picket lines on November 14. Approximately 36,000 graduate student teaching assistants, tutors, and researchers are bargaining separately and continue to strike in order to demand higher pay and benefits.
After failing to reach an agreement with two of the four bargaining units involved in the strike, the university and the union announced on Friday that they would enter mediation. Although no timetable for the mediation has been established, the parties stated on Monday that Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg will act as the mediator.
According to union organizers, the walkout could be the largest work stoppage in the elite public university system’s history. It is being closely monitored and could have repercussions in schools across the country.
Academic workers claim they have no choice but to strike in order to seek the pay required to keep up with exorbitant rents in locations such as Berkeley, San Diego, and Los Angeles.
The new contract, according to Jade Moore, a postdoctoral student in radiation oncology at the University of California, San Francisco who was part of the bargaining team, will set a new standard for postdoctoral workers across the country.
“Tens of thousands of UC Academic Workers have put everything on the line to build a stronger, more egalitarian UC, and we couldn’t be prouder of everything we’ve accomplished together so far,” Moore said in a statement.
