The tentative agreement addresses fair compensation, salary progression and affordable health insurance
By KAYA DO-KHANH — campus@theaggie.org
On Oct. 3, UC officials announced a tentative agreement with the Teamsters Local 2010 union for a four-year contract that will seek to address issues such as fair compensation, salary progression and affordable health insurance for its members, according to a recent press release. The new contract will affect 11,000 clerical employees, library assistants and other administrative staff represented by the Teamsters.
The UC Clerical and Allied Services (CX) Unit of the Teamsters is made up of around 12,000 administrative support workers in the UC system who joined the Teamsters in 2010 and formed the Teamsters Local 2010. The Teamsters work toward winning better wages, benefits and working conditions.
Aimee Baror, the communications director for the Teamsters Local 2010, said that the negotiation process for this contract took almost a year and involved 47 formal bargaining sessions with the UC.
“Many times it’s a tug of war, so thousands of members took action in the form of rallies, they signed petitions, they signed digital letter campaigns and they taped leaflets to the doors of the campus chancellors,” Baror said. “It shows the university that the membership is united and that they are willing to take action […] That visibility and that willingness by the membership really made a difference in what the bargaining team was able to negotiate in the contract.”
The tentative agreement includes guaranteed across-the-board raises, annual step increases that are not based on merit or performance, gains on overtime and more, according to the Teamsters Local 2010 website.
“The pay steps were very important because many workers were not being moved up their pay scale even after they had worked for the university for five years, 10 years,” Baror said. “Sometimes people worked there even longer than that and they are still below the median of their pay range.”
The tentative agreement also includes a change to the UC’s health benefits system that will prevent increases to employee contributions for monthly health insurance premiums from exceeding $25 per member for the length of the contract, according to the UC network website. All bargaining unit members will also now receive annual across-the-board pay increases totaling 15% over the life of the contract.
Jenny Hodge, a Special Collections assistant at Shields Library and a CX bargaining unit team member, said that being on the bargaining team, she was able to learn about clerical workers’ experiences across campus. The team presented examples of UC employees’ work over the past two years, which was part of the reason the Teamsters were able to successfully negotiate a contract, according to Hodge.
Hodge said that she believes the new contact is, in part, recognizing the work that clerical employees did to keep UC Davis running through the pandemic. She worked at Shields Library, which was one of the facilities on campus that remained open during most portions of the pandemic.
“It’s important because this contract speaks to people’s wages — this is how people are able to live their lives and support their families,” Hodge said. “Working toward this contract is about the UC system valuing their employees, and that’s by paying [us] wages that, frankly, we deserve.”
On Oct. 21, the contract was ratified with a 98.3% vote in favor, according to a post on the Teamsters Local 2010 website. The contract is effective through June 30, 2026, and the full tentative agreement is available on their site as well.
Written by: Kaya Do-Khanh — campus@theaggie.org
