Updated: 48 minutes ago Published: 1 hour ago

The University of Alaska and the Alaska Graduate Workers Association have reached an agreement on a labor contract that would last from July through the end of 2026, the university said Tuesday.

The university described the pact as a “tentative initial agreement” that must go through more steps. The agreement must be approved by the university Board of Regents and the state Department of Administration, as well as be ratified by the union. The university plans to submit the request for the Legislature to fund it before the end of the legislative session, scheduled to happen by May 15.

UA President Pat Pitney said the university administration’s goal throughout negotiations was to support “fair compensation increases” for graduate students with a contract that was financially sustainable.

“I’m incredibly grateful for the hard work put in over the last several days that allowed us to reach an agreement,” Pitney said in the prepared statement announcing the agreement. “We look forward to submitting it for legislative consideration this session.”

Union bargaining committee member Abigail Schiffmiller said Tuesday evening that the union aims to ratify the agreement within 24 hours to allow time for the Legislature to fund it.

Schiffmiller, a Ph.D. student and research assistant in biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said the agreement addresses all of the critical issues raised by union members. They include increasing pay, allowing bargaining over health insurance in the future, and requiring that if employees lose their jobs, the university must prove there was a just cause. It also allows the union to file grievances over discrimination and sexual harassment. And she said it would help both the university — by allowing students who had been under financial pressure to focus on research — as well as the state, by making the university more competitive in attracting grad students to Alaska, who may stay after they graduate.

The graduate student workers voted to unionize in October and marched in protest Monday to increase pressure for a contract. On Friday, a Fairbanks Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining sought by the university that blocked the students from striking.

The university said it took 96 days of negotiations to reach an agreement, in contrast with a national average of 465 days for a union’s first contract agreement.

The terms of the agreement include increasing minimum pay for master’s degree students by 14%, to $24.50 per hour, and by 17% for Ph.D. students, to $29 hourly, according to the university statement.

The terms include fee waivers for union members, and up to three weeks of unpaid family leave and 20 hours of scheduled leave per semester. The agreement also includes grievance procedures and continued health insurance coverage, as well as union input on future insurance changes. The cost of insurance is set to increase by $400,000, to be covered by the university, according to the statement.

The three universities in the statewide system have a total of 23 Ph.D. programs, more than 60 master’s programs, as well as graduate certificate programs.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Department of Energy Tuesday announced it has awarded more than $20 million to Alaskan communities for rural and remote clean energy projects. The six projects selected as part of the Energy Improvement in Rural and Remote Areas (ERA) grant program aim to cut energy costs, enhance climate resiliency, and support local economic development: 

• Tanacross Solar PV and Tok Battery Energy Storace System (Native Villages of Tanacross and Tok, Alaska): $5 million grant to install 1.5MW of solar PV on the grid at the Alaska Power & Telephone power plant paired with a 1.5MHw battery energy storage system that is expected to displace more than 12,500 gallons of expensive diesel fuel each year.
• Big Battery as our Backbone (Kokhanok Village, Alaska): $5 million grant to upgrade the Kokhanok microgrid with a 943kWh battery energy storage system and solar, PV, wind turbine and electric thermal storage heating units, significantly increasing the microgrid’s reliability and resilience.
• New Stuyahok Solar-Battery (New Stuyahok, Alaska): $4.3 million grant to construct a 500kW solar PV array, a 540kWh battery energy storage system, and a microgrid controller – leveraging abundant summer daylight hours to displace nearly a quarter of fuel consumption for rural Yup’ik villages in the remote Dillingham region.
• Decarbonizing the Tongass with Tribally Owned Heat Pumps (Prince of Wales Island, Alaska): $2.5 million grant for a tribally owned project to install air-source heat pumps in up to 240 tribal buildings – powered by existing clean hydroelectric resources – to help reduce residents’ energy reliance on and emissions from fossil fuel use.
• High Penetration Solar-Battery Project (Ambler, Alaska): $2.1 million grant to upgrade an existing power plant to allow for a 400kW solar PV system and a 500kWh battery energy storage system to produce nearly a quarter of the community’s electricity and allowing the village’s diesel generators to be turned off for the first time in more than 40 years.
• Ouzinkie Independent Power Energy Improvement Project (Spruce Island, Alaska): $1.7 million grant to construct a 160kW solar PV and 210kWh battery energy storage system for a new microgrid offering back-up power during severe weather outages and reducing electricity costs by 10% for this community of 128 indigenous residents.

Nineteen projects across 12 states and 13 Tribal nations and communities were selected for this round of ERA grant funding. Further details on the $78 million awarded is in the press release below, and you can find specific project details on the OCED website. 

  Alaska, ambler, awards, clean, kokhanok, newstuyahok, ouzinkie, princeofwales, solar, tanacross

JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaskans on Tuesday reacted to reports from multiple sources that the Biden Administration intends to reclassify regulation of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, altering its categorization to match drugs considered to be less dangerous. Schedule I is the most strict, and includes drugs such as heroin and LSD. Schedule III, where cannabis is expected to soon move, includes Tylenol with codeine and anabolic steroids.

Additionally, Schedule I is a category for drugs considered to have no medical use and a high potential for abuse, whereas Schedule III is classified as having moderate to low potential for dependence, and can be used for medicinal purposes.

Attorney Jana Weltzin – who is a board member with the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association – said the potential move by the federal government would be a huge benefit for businesses, because they would no longer be treated like “drug traffickers.” She also said such a change to reschedule the drug would be a relief for many businesses, in the event that they could deduct business expenses when filing taxes.

“That’s a very helpful thing,” she said. “We go from having all this phantom income, because there are all these expenses that you have to attribute to your net income and pay taxes on. To be able to capture those regular business expenses and be able to deduct them, like a normal business, that really helps. There’s nothing about this rescheduling that hurts so far, nothing that hurts a business.”

Weltzin said reclassifying cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III substance does not necessarily mean marijuana will be legal for medical reasons across the country, and it will not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use, but it does mean the federal government recognizes it has value medically. As far as the move possibly leading to wide-sweeping change by the federal government to legalize marijuana, Weltzin said there could be unintended consequences.

“You get interstate commerce,” she said. “State of Alaska excise tax as it currently stands could be completely out the window. And then the state is out roughly $2 million a month in marijuana excise tax. And so, we have to be careful and artful about how we think about federal legalization, and really engage with the stakeholders.

“It really should be more of a state rights approach,” she continued, “rather than just a sweeping federal change, because a lot of the businesses that are built specifically under the state programs could not survive a federal landscape if it’s not done correctly.”

Several state lawmakers who were asked on Tuesday if the potential move by the federal government could disrupt any legislation in the works this session declined to comment.

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