(AP) - The University of California is raising the minimum wage for its employees and contract workers to $15 an hour by fall 2017.
UC President Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that it will be the nation's first public university system to set its own base hourly wage. She said at a meeting of the 10-campus system's governing board that it's the right thing to do because the university is California's third-largest employer.
The university's hourly earners were making the state minimum of $9. Napolitano says the wage will increase to $13 an hour in October for employees who work at least 20 hours a week and by $1 an hour in each of the next two years.
System spokeswoman Dianne Klein says the move will affect about 4,200 university workers and an unknown number of workers hired by its contractors.
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