The University of California system will raise the minimum wage for its employees to $15 an hour, UC President Janet Napolitano announced Wednesday at a Board of Regents meeting. The wage hike will be phased in through 2017 for students and other employees working at least 20 hours per week in campus dining services, bookstores and other university operations.
“This is the right thing to do—for our workers and their families, for our mission and values, and to enhance UC’s leadership role by becoming the first public university in the United States to voluntarily establish a minimum wage of 15 dollars,” said Napolitano in a statement.
This policy change comes amid a national stir over hourly wages, led by labor unions, that has seen the minimum wage rise in cities like Los Angeles and Seattle substantially above state and national requirements. On Wednesday, a wage board in New York recommended the state raise its hourly wage for fast-food workers to $15.
Hourly wage earners at the university, which is California’s third-largest employer, currently make the state’s $9 minimum—which was set to increase to $10 an hour on Jan. 1, 2016. That will change when the university’s mandate increases the minimum to $13 an hour on Oct. 1, 2015, then $14 an hour on Oct. 1, 2016, and $15 an hour on Oct. 1, 2017.