Graduate T.A.'s Reach Tentative Contract Deal With U. of California By COURTNEY LEATHERMAN
After more than a year of stalled talks, failed mediation, and threatened strikes, the University of California system and the union of its graduate teaching assistants reached a tentative agreement Wednesday on a contract.
According to the university, the tentative deal, which would expire in September 2003, includes an immediate 1.5 percent salary increase followed by increases of about 2 percent in each of the subsequent years. In addition, the university has agreed to incrementally increase the proportion of the $3,700 in tuition it now covers -- to 100 percent by 2002, from the current 60 percent.
For its part, the union agreed not to strike for the duration of the contract and to set up an internal process that uses faculty members of the Academic Senate to resolve workload disputes between T.A.'s and their faculty bosses.
"We believe this is an agreement that is fair to academic student employees, that is within the resources available to us and that recognizes the central role of the faculty in maintaining U.C.'s standards of academic excellence," said the university's president, Richard C. Atkinson, in a statement.
Union leaders refused to discuss details of the deal until the members vote whether to ratify it. The voting is to begin on each campus next week.
But the union did offer general glimpses of the agreement. In a statement, the union said the deal included "strong remedies for sexual harassment and discrimination, as well as protections for workload and job security."
Kristen Guzmán, a T.A. at the university's Los Angeles campus and a member of the union's bargaining team, called the tentative agreement "an excellent one" and said the bargaining team was encouraging union members to approve it. "We are strongly behind it," she said.