As a UC-AFT librarian, you’re entitled to fair wages. Our Unit 17 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) generally provides for minimum salaries and raises, giving departments, programs, and school discretion to set wages higher than the minimum. We are currently fighting for a new contract to raise our wages so that all UC librarians are adequately compensated for all of the work they do to advance scholarship, research, and teaching at our university. Information here will be updated as soon as the new contract is agreed to and ratified by our members. Here’s the 2019-2024 Unit 17 salary scale.
Here we address some of the most frequently asked questions about how wages and benefits work at UC. We encourage you not to rely solely on your department chair, managers, or other administrative staff for information about the wages and benefits you’re entitled to. They may misrepresent the terms of our contract and the flexibility it provides them to pay you more. If you have additional questions or concerns about your compensation, contact your local chapter.
Your initial appointment is based on your education and experience. The compensation you receive is based on your rank (Assistant Librarian, Associate Librarian, Librarian). Represented librarians progress up the salary scale through successful navigation of the review process, including merit increases and promotion within the librarian series ranks.
Since the founding of our union in 1972, UC-AFT has fought to stabilize and increase the salary scale through the collective bargaining process. With organized bargaining and all-out member activism, our union secured a nearly 25% average salary increase for librarians over the course of our current contract.
In our current contract campaign, our Unit 17 table team has put forth several proposals that would both raise our salary scales and make them more equitable across campuses and job classifications. Our current proposals include:
- $8,000 increase at every point on the salary scale at contract ratification
- 6% increases applied evenly across the salary schedule on July 1st of each year of the contract (4-year contract proposed)
- Removal of the bottom two steps from the Assistant and Associate Librarian ranks
- A one-time 3-step salary increase when an Assistant Librarian promotes to Associate Librarian
- A “me-too” clause to match any general range salary adjustment given to non-represented librarians
- A guarantee that if non-represented librarians at the top of the Librarian rank can access off-scale salary above the published scale, U17 librarians in the same situation should also be able to access these off-scale increases
In order for us to win these protections, we need your support! Learn more about our current contract campaign and how you can get involved at uclibrarians.org.
A General Range Adjustment is a salary increase that applies to all steps/points on a salary scale and that is received by all represented librarians on the salary scale. In our 2019 contract campaign, UC-AFT librarians won an annual General Range Adjustment of 3% for 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 – what we can win next time depends on you! Salary is outlined in Article 13 of our current contract. Also included in this article are the number of salary points a librarian will receive based on the review process (see more on this below).
Librarians in the bargaining unit shall be eligible for merit increases to the extent and in the same manner as they are provided to non-represented academic personnel. Article 4 of the contract describes the process for represented librarian advancement, including merit increases, the achievement of career status, and rank promotion.
Librarians receive Professional Development funding as outlined in Article 3 of the contract. Each campus receives a specified annual funding pool, which is then divided equally amongst represented librarians based on headcount at each campus at the beginning of the fiscal year. An additional University-wide annual research fund of $24,300 is allocated for competitive research and presentation grants administered by the Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC). Note that this special research fund is also available to non-represented librarians.
Learn more about Professional Development here.
