LOS ANGELES — As University of California graduate student union leaders and supporters celebrated Saturday the ratification of a new labor agreement that ended a historic strike, the vote also exposed a sharp divide among campuses.
The agreement was approved by separate units of United Auto Workers — with SRU-UAW representing graduate student researchers and UAW 2865 representing teaching assistants, tutors and other student academic workers. Overall, about 68% of graduate student researchers voted in favor of the agreement to secure their first UC contract while about 61% of teaching assistants and other student academic workers voted to approve the agreement.
But teaching assistants and other academic workers at the University of California, Merced, the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Califorina, Santa Barbara overwhelmingly rejected the proposed contract while majorities at the UC system’s other campuses voted to approve it.
