The University of California’s 6,500 lecturers called off their planned strike today after winning long-sought concessions from UC management — including salary increases of about 30% over five years for its members and job stability promises.

The deal, brokered around 4 a.m., followed two days of marathon bargaining sessions and capped off a labor impasse that began nearly three years ago.

“What changed is that we were really going to go on strike,” said Mia McIver, president of the union of lecturers, the University Council-American Federation of Teachers said in a Nov. 17 statement. “They understood how angry our members were.”

The work stoppage would have canceled as much as a third of undergraduate instruction at the nation’s premier public university system.

Union officials called for the strike over the weekend to mount pressure on the UC’s negotiators. Numerous state lawmakers have been urging the UC to settle the labor dispute, blaming the university for the impasse. Aiding the union was a commitment from more than 800 senior faculty to cancel classes in solidarity with the striking lecturers.

UC President Michael Drake called the deal “a great agreement” at today’s UC Board of Regents meeting. The tentative contract “means more job security and other important benefits for our valued lecturers.”

The UC on Monday said the planned strike was unnecessary and harmful to students. “We believe we’ve given the union an excellent proposal, and that you and your colleagues deserve the opportunity to vote on it,” wrote Leticia Silas, executive director of labor relations for the UC, in a Monday evening public letter to lecturers. “It’s past time for an agreement.”

The union and UC management signed a summary document early today outlining the new contract’s details. The full terms will be spelled out later today. Union members will then vote on whether to approve the contract sometime in the next two weeks.

Lecturers are UC instructors who typically have doctorate degrees but lack the job stability and pay that tenure and tenured-track faculty receive.

A CalMatters investigation found that a quarter of lecturers leave their jobs annually. Their short-term contracts can last  just a few months before they must re-apply, their pay averages around $32,000 because of limited work opportunities, and there is no system of performance reviews to determine when and how a lecturer can be rehired.

The deal addresses many of those concerns and includes:

• Annual pay raises of 7%, 3%, 3%, 3%, and 4% for all lecturers plus a higher bump for the lowest-paid lecturers and other increases based on merit;
• Employment contracts of one, two and then three years;
• Extensive performance reviews at the end of the two- and three-year contracts and a shorter written review following a one-year appointment;
• Rehiring rights if work is available for lecturers who passed their reviews;
• More compensation for lecturers who teach classes with more than 200 students or that have heavy writing components.

Other details were nonbinding, such as language saying academic departments may assign lecturers additional part-time work if it becomes available.

“But the big fight was to create viable, teaching-focused career pathways for people who want them and I really think we’ve accomplished that,” McIver said.

As recently as 8:30 p.m. Tuesday the union was still prepared to strike after bargaining with the UC since 9 that morning.

The threat of the strike was technically over accusations of the UC’s unfair labor practices rather than the larger contract terms. That distinction is important: By law the union couldn’t strike over the contract because they were in state-led mediation with the UC. Adding to the confusion, the UC and lecturers have also been negotiating behind closed doors through a state mediator.

The lecturer union and UC settled a key unfair labor practice gripe. Lecturers will now get four weeks of paid family leave at 100% of pay; previously the UC was offering paid leave at 70% and only for lecturers who worked more than 1,250 hours in a year, which excluded most of the workforce because so many work part time. The union was asking for eight weeks of paid leave.

Lecturers didn’t win everything they wanted.

The UC still won’t pay into a lecturer’s Social Security if the lecturer works less than 50% of what’s considered full-time. Lecturers in that situation also don’t receive UC retirement contributions. The lecturers didn’t get a promise of a neutral arbitration committee to settle workload disputes nor changes to grievance procedures.

“I think this is just a completely extraordinary moment in time,” MicIver said. “I feel like we’ve accomplished something real.”