The University of California and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union reached a tentative contract agreement early Thursday morning, shortly after a systemwide open-ended strike was scheduled to begin. 

The tentative contract agreement, which will be ratified by its employees in the coming days, provides generous wage increases and includes health care caps and stipends, ratification bonuses, equity pools to address systemwide pay disparities and longevity bonuses. 

Despite making meaningful progress at the bargaining table this week, AFSCME declined another UC offer that would have increased pay by more than 34% and provided $2,000 ratification bonuses to eligible employees. 

The University of California Board of Regents today (May 5) approved UC President James B. Milliken’s recommendation of the appointment of Katherine “Kathy” Yelick as the ninth director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). An internationally recognized leader in high-performance computing and large-scale scientific research, Yelick currently serves as vice chancellor for research at UC Berkeley and has held joint appointments at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley for three decades.