Kansas University’s graduate teaching assistants ended two years of negotiations Monday by unanimously approving a new contract.

The 70-0 vote sends the contract to the Kansas Board of Regents and Department of Administration, both of which are expected to approve the deal to take effect Oct. 1.

“Pretty much everybody is going to get a raise out of this in the next three years,” said Robert Vodicka, a teaching assistant in western civilization and lead negotiator for the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition. “It wouldn’t be likely for anyone to vote against that.”

But even Vodicka didn’t expect the vote to be unanimous.

“I expected it to be overwhelming, but it surprises me not one person voted against it,” he said.

About 200 of KU’s approximately 900 teaching assistants are union members, but the three-year contract applies to all assistants.

It is the second contract secured since teaching assistants unionized in 1995. The other was in 1997, when the group approved its contract 76-18. That contract, also for three years, remains in place until a new one is ratified.

The new contract, agreed to in July, increases the amount KU spends on graduate teaching assistant salaries from $10 million to $13 million per year. The additional money will be given in the form of merit raises, which will be determined by officials in each department.

The pay increase will come from the additional tuition money KU will receive the next three years.

It also sets a minimum salary of $8,000 for graduate teaching assistants the first year of the contract, followed by $9,000 the second year and $10,000 the third.

The two sides also agreed on seeking an increase in the level of state health care coverage from the Kansas Health Care Commission.

Lynn Bretz, a KU spokeswoman, said university officials also were pleased by the vote’s results.

“I’d say that’s a ringing endorsement,” she said. “I think everybody is happy. We’re happy because this is the first major improvement students are seeing from the tuition increase.”

Dan Carey, the coalition’s president, said union members planned to continue fighting for benefits during the next three years, even though contract negotiations had stopped.

He said some assistants who teach foreign languages but major in other departments have had their appointments changed to lecture positions in the past two years.

“It’s one example of the many tools we think the university will use to decrease the bargaining unit, to get not as many people on this contract,” he said.

Bretz said according to KU policies, teaching assistant positions must be an “integral part of the student’s academic endeavor,” and teaching outside a student’s department is “really stepping out of the bounds of that academic role.”

The Board of Regents generally approves contracts on its agenda. It meets Sept. 18-19.