Faculty and most academic employees not in collective bargaining units should have seen their paychecks increase by at least 2 percent this month, according to a memo from Gene Lucas, UCSB executive vice chancellor. For faculty members, this raise is in addition to the merit increases that usually come at three-year intervals.

While at press time some unions are still negotiating—the one including librarians, for example—most represented academic units have concluded contract bargaining and received the same 2 percent range adjustments. The primary exception is the Academic Student Employees union, which negotiated a 1.5 percent across-the-board increase to go with its 2 percent range increase. This 3.5 percent bump goes to readers, TAs, and similar graduate student employees.

Graduate student researchers, who are currently not unionized, got 3.5 percent raises to help make up for “the lack of general range or merit increases over recent years,” Lucas said in the Sept. 27 memo.

He added that this fiscal year’s faculty and staff salary increases are “very welcome news, and hopefully represent the first of many steps to restore our salaries to competitive levels.”

Employee compensation consultants hired by UC recently told the Board of Regents that, as of last July, salaries systemwide lag comparable market salaries by an average of 15 percent.