Systems Administrators secure major pay increases in new tentative agreement with UC

On May 21, UPTE’s bargaining team of Systems Administrators reached a Tentative Agreement (TA) with UC regarding pay scales and paid time off for SAs 1-3. Last week, these members voted overwhelmingly to ratify their TA, which now becomes official. 

These IT professionals work hard to support, troubleshoot, and maintain UC's computer networks so that the needs of our students, faculty, clinicians, and patients are met. Without them, our campuses, medical centers, and workplaces would struggle to function. 

This victory was the result of years of hard work by System Administrators and the SA bargaining team, and this agreement has been a long time in the making. UC had withheld the raises we were entitled to under the TX agreement from 2019 until last year, when we reached a settlement with raises that totaled up to 21.5%. 

Under the newly-ratified agreement, we were able to move UC from an initial offer of $74,000 for average SA3 starting pay to $94,000 and from an initial offer of $118,000 for SA3 max pay to $147,000. This means that nearly 100 Systems Administrators who are currently paid below Step 1 will see significant raises, some more than 20%.

This is a significant victory that will have real impacts for our members who are trying to buy homes, start families, catch up on bills, save money for the future, or whatever else might be a priority. 

"The inclusion of Systems Administrators in UPTE has been a seven-year ordeal in which the University of California repeatedly delayed negotiations and denied contractually obligated pay increases to SAs, making it harder to plan secure futures of ourselves, our families, and our careers,” said Joseph Menke, a Systems Administrator and UPTE Unit Representative from UC Davis who also served on the bargaining team. “I’m proud of the persistence and dedication of every member who was involved in making this agreement possible.”

Joseph continued, saying, “The agreement that we reached is a big step forward, providing pay increases for many long-time staff and a salary floor much closer to industry norms, but much more needs to be done to fix persisting pay inequities and improve how the university supports emerging technologies and secures research data. These are issues that we will be focused on in the upcoming TX contract negotiations and beyond."

Systems Administrators will head to the bargaining table with the rest of UPTE’s UC members on June 11 to renegotiate our full TX agreement.