Professional Staff Wage Scale Survey
Whether we're UC-UAW workers with a union contract or unrepresented workers still seeking a voice on the job, UC professional staff share a common goal: building a UC where workers can afford to stay, grow their careers, and continue serving our students, programs, and communities.
When 12,000 UAW-represented staff negotiated their first contract in 2025-2026, UC management agreed to establish a step-based wage scale for professional staff in UAW-represented titles by July 2027. Those negotiations will begin in January 2027.
To prepare for wage scale bargaining, staff across UC, whether or not they are currently represented by a union, are taking this survey and are joining our union. Please take the survey to make your voice heard!
Whether represented or unrepresented by a union, professional staff share the same challenges:
Rising cost of living;
Limited advancement opportunities;
Inconsistent pay growth;
Staffing shortages;
Growing workloads.
These issues are not isolated to one title or department. UC's research, education, health, and public service missions depend on staff who stay and build careers here. Yet many of us are forced to leave because management fails to provide adequate wage growth, fair advancement opportunities, and long-term career paths. The fight for fair career progression belongs to every worker at UC.
Professional staff need a pay scale that creates transparency, fairness, and stability. It should reward experience, recognize growth, and help retain the workers who make UC run. Workers should not have to negotiate individually or depend on management discretion to receive fair wage increases. A step-based wage system ensures equitable, transparent pay progression and recognition for our experience.
Click here to learn more about upcoming wage scale bargaining, and here to learn more about unrepresented professional staff workers’ campaign to unionize with UAW.
UC management has a clear choice in front of them: Invest in the workers who make its mission possible, or continue a system that fuels turnover, understaffing, and instability. We’re organizing to push them toward the right choice.