The Teaching Assistant Labor Organization has ratified its first long-term contract with the University, the union wrote in an email to members Wednesday afternoon.
Voting members of the union, which represents undergraduate computer science TAs, casted their ballots on the three-year agreement between last week and Monday night. The contract passed with 94% of the votes.
The contract, which will apply to all CS TAs, replaces a one-year interim agreement in place for the 2023-2024 academic year. It will go into effect after both the union and the University sign the final agreement in the coming weeks and last until fall 2027, TALO President Yasmine Abdelaziz ’25 said. Negotiations for a long-term contract started in March 2024.
“Additional steps remain to execute the agreement, and we expect to communicate further when the agreement is final and ready to post publicly,” University spokesperson Brian Clark wrote in an email to The Herald. “Undergraduate teaching assistants have played an important role in the Department of Computer Science for more than 50 years, and we're pleased to have reached this point in the bargaining process.”
The newly-ratified contract includes a 3% annual increase in the base hourly rate for all undergraduate teaching assistants in the CS department. Undergraduate TAs, who currently earn $20 per hour, will have a base rate of $21.85 by fall 2026 under the new agreement. Before the interim agreement, UTAs were paid $15.50 hourly.
The new contract also overhauls the procedure for addressing allegations of discrimination and harassment. Adopting language from the Graduate Labor Organization’s current contract, TALO’s new agreement will allow undergraduate computer science TAs to enter a formal grievance process for complaints of alleged discrimination and harassment. If complaints are not resolved early in the grievance process, the complaint can proceed to third-party arbitration.
Before the new contract, TAs could not formally enter a grievance and arbitration process for discrimination complaints, which were instead “processed through the procedures of the University Office that handles such discrimination claims.”
The new contract also adds a description of roles and responsibilities for the joint Undergraduate TA and Socially Responsible Computing TA position. The previous agreement lacked a description for the role that encompassed both positions.
Additionally, the new contract redefines what constitutes “extensive course development,” — such as creating new or structurally modifying existing assignments — and establishes new guidelines for the timeline that professors and TAs must follow for covered course development work.
“There are strict guidelines for a timeline to be created and what is counted as extensive course development,” Abdelaziz said. “But there is added flexibility for the TAs and the professors to talk with each other in good faith about timelines and what is considered extensive development.”
Ethan Schenker is a senior staff writer covering staff and student labor. He is from Bethesda, MD, and plans to study International and Public Affairs and Economics. In his free time, he enjoys playing piano and clicking on New York Times notifications.
