Dear colleagues,

Friday night, our Student Services and Advising Professionals (SSAP-UAW) and Research and Public Services Professionals (RPSP-UAW) bargaining teams reached a tentative agreement (TA) on a historic first contract with UC management. The agreement would raise our pay by at least 27.8% over the 4 years of the contract, create an enforceable process to request reclassification, address career stagnation as well as unreasonable workloads, cap health insurance premium increases, provide enforceable protections for existing and new remote and hybrid work agreements, increase job security, and so much more!

As you’ll see in the full text, before and after comparison, and summary of the Tentative Agreement, which we hope will soon become RPSP’s and SSAP’s first-ever union contract, we have made major strides on issues that impact our workplaces, our wages, and our lives.

On Tuesday, March 17th, you will receive a ballot to ratify our historic first union contract. Our bargaining teams are proud to unanimously endorse a YES vote on this Tentative Agreement. After years of organizing and months of negotiations, nearly 5,000 SSAPs and 7,000 RPSPs have won a contract that enshrines historic gains and protections, setting new standards for staff at the University of California. Beyond economic gains in wages and benefits, this agreement raises the bar with enforcement mechanisms that give staff real recourse if our rights are violated. Almost all rights and protections are backed by a strong grievance and arbitration process, which means UC no longer decides whether it broke the rules.

Like all agreements, the Tentative Agreement is a product of compromise. While there are still more fights to win, the wins in this contract represent an incredibly strong foundation to build from. And that is the result of mass engagement. In solidarity with the Academic Student Employees (ASE) with UAW 4811–who have reached a tentative agreement alongside us–we rallied, shared our stories and struggles, voted to authorize the bargaining teams to call a strike, and held a massive picket across all our campuses that clearly told management we would not accept their bad-faith bargaining and unfair labor practices. This mass engagement paid off with our historic contract. 

Tuesday also marks our first opportunity to become dues-paying members of our union. High membership sign-up this week will show UC management that we are unified behind this contract and will not tolerate any erosion of its provisions. Membership dues are our way to pool resources to pay for legal representation, train our members to enforce our contract, and everything that goes into protecting and advancing our rights. Becoming a dues-paying member means our union can ensure that our contract delivers on its life-changing terms and that we can continue building our power to make UC a better, fairer place to work for years to come.

We strongly recommend that you become a dues-paying member and vote to ratify the contract so that, together, we can continue to build a better UC for all.

In unity,

RPSP-UAW & SSAP-UAW Bargaining Team Members: 

Anthony Gin, RPSP-UAW Representative, Davis
Leo Lamanna, SSAP-UAW Representative, Davis
Brianna McGuire, RPSP-UAW Representative, Davis
Tori White, SSAP-UAW Representative, Davis
Nikta Akhavan, RPSP-UAW Representative, Berkeley
Ziva Armstrong, SSAP-UAW Representative, Berkeley
Christine Mullarkey, SSAP-UAW Representative, Berkeley
Erica Wilson, RPSP-UAW Representative, Berkeley
Austin Edwards, RPSP-UAW Representative, San Francisco
Lee Einhorn, RPSP-UAW Representative, San Francisco
Eve Perry, RPSP-UAW Representative, San Francisco
Jonah Taranta-Slack, SSAP-UAW Representative, San Francisco
Karen Linam, SSAP-UAW Representative, Merced
Meg Kan, SSAP-UAW Representative, Santa Cruz
Seneca Ryan, SSAP-UAW Representative, Santa Barbara
Sean Campbell, SSAP-UAW Representative, Los Angeles
Carolina Cormack Orellana, RPSP-UAW Representative, Los Angeles
Leila Espinosa, RPSP-UAW Representative, Los Angeles
Nandini Inmula, SSAP-UAW Representative, Los Angeles
Kimberly Schweigman, RPSP-UAW Representative, Los Angeles
Daisy Ruiz, SSAP-UAW Representative, Riverside
Kerri McCanna, SSAP-UAW Representative, Irvine
Simeon Benit, RPSP-UAW Representative, San Diego
Greg Hester, RPSP-UAW Representative, San Diego
Janean Kromka, SSAP-UAW Representative, San Diego
Myiesha Phelps, RPSP-UAW Representative, San Diego