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 10-campus UC system.
The tentative agreement would give graduate student teaching assistants, tutors, researchers and other members of two United Auto Workers bargaining units an increase in minimum pay to about $34,000 from the current $24,000. The unions had demanded doubling their pay to $54,000 — but union leadership agreed to take the offer to their members for ratification.
