The State : Nurses, UC Reach Agreement on Pact

Negotiators for the University of California and the California Nurses Assn., representing 5,000 UC nurses, have reached a tentative agreement on a two-year contract after six weeks of talks. The union, which had sought systemwide pay parity for all 9 UC medical facilities, received instead wage raises that ranged from approximately 3% to 6% depending on the facility. Nurses, however, did win time-and-a-half pay for work on some holidays and a guarantee of 16 hours per year of time off for outside classes. Under the old contract, which expired Oct. 31, Clinical Nurse IIs had earned from a low of $11.51 per hour to $13.87 at UC San Diego to $14.08 per hour hour to $16.21 at UC San Francisco.