CONTRACT
HIGHLIGHTS
After ten months of bargaining and five weeks of striking, workers secured and ratified new contracts on December 23, 2022. These contracts contain record-setting wage increases – the largest-ever increases for any unionized higher-education workers. The contracts also contain breakthroughs in new areas like the first-ever contractual transit benefits at UC, the first-ever inclusion of NRST and dependent healthcare after years of demanding both, and industry-standard-setting protections against abusive conduct.
- Wages: ASE explainer here and GSR explainer here, both of which show 2023 and 2024 increases, with 55-80% increases for ASEs and 25-80% increases for GSRs by 2024.
- Childcare: A 27% increase to childcare subsidies, increasing from $1,100/quarter ($1,650/semester) to $1,350/quarter ($2,025/semester) in Winter 2023; to $1,400/quarter ($2,100/semester) in 2024.
- Dependent Healthcare: first-ever remission of dependent healthcare through UC academic worker contracts, limited to single-parents or single-income households that fall above the free medi-cal coverage threshold. See FAQ here.
- Paid Leave and Time Off: 8 weeks of fully paid parental leave for birthing and non-birthing parents, 8 weeks of disability or medical related leave, and additional guaranteed paid time off for GSRs. This is up from 6 weeks for birthing parents and 4 weeks for non-birthing parents and all other cases.
- Fee Remission: A new waiver of 100% of all campus fees, which can be up to $1,617 per year. And, codification of the 3-year post-candidacy NRST waiver in the contract, so that it cannot be threatened or taken away. This would be the first ever NRST-related contract language, and would make this waiver enforceable through our grievance procedure. The contracts also preserves already-existing departmental and campus NRST policies and allows us to file grievances if NRST is revoked.
- Immigration: Protections for re-employment related to work authorization issues and guaranteed immigration-related leaves.
- Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying: First-ever protections from discrimination and harassment at work for GSRs with guaranteed interim measures; industry standard-setting protections from bullying and abusive conduct in the workplace, also with guaranteed interim measures while investigations are ongoing. Read more about this article here.
- Access Needs: First-ever contractual protections to improve accessibility for GSRs and improved rights for meeting ASEs’ access needs via interim accommodations and a worker committee to establish proactive accessibility measures, including centralized funding. Read more about this article here.
- Health and Safety and Workers Compensation: GSRs now have protections against unhealthy or unsafe work environments, the right to refuse unsafe work, and the right to benefit from Workers Compensation; ASEs maintained their strong rights to a healthy and safe workplace.
- Parking and Transit: First-ever guaranteed transit benefits in the contract, including a commitment from UC to provide fully-funded transit passes at all campuses, and transit benefits of up to $50/month at campuses that do not yet have passes.
- Appointment Security: GSRs have guaranteed appointments that cannot be taken away, and ASEs maintained their strong appointment security rights.
- Job Security: GSRs would have protections from unjust discipline and layoffs for the first time, and ASEs maintained their strong job security protections.
- Workload: ASEs maintained strong workload protections and GSRs won protections from work beyond their appointments and an expedited process to resolve workload disputes.
- Recognition and Classifications: Every campus can now use higher paid TA job titles, meaning more opportunities for higher salaries. GSRs, Fellows and Trainees maintained their hard-fought recognition agreement. Old ASE misclassifications are no longer permitted.
- Union Rights: Improved union security with a streamlined process for joining the union during onboarding processes
- Grievance and Arbitration: An improved process to address the University’s procedural objections to grievances for ASEs and the first-ever enforceable recourse for GSRs in workplace disputes.