After years of negotiations and a threatened walkout, University of California nurses are voting this week to ratify their first multiyear labor agreement with UC in nearly a decade.

The 26-month deal, still tentative pending a vote by the California Nurses Association, includes an average pay hike of 11 percent for all nurses over the next 26 months.

Other contract provisions include defined meal and rest breaks along with limits on the contributions nurses would have to make to their health insurance premiums.

"We've been bargaining continuously for the last two years, and we're excited to see some agreement," said Shirley Toy, a registered nurse at UC Davis. Toy serves on the bargaining team that represents more than 2,000 UC Davis nurses.

UC Davis nurses vote to ratify the agreement Wednesday and Thursday, Toy said.

Toy, a nurse since 1981, said reaching agreement on meal and rest breaks during shifts was especially significant. Nurses have long said they needed the uninterrupted breaks to remain alert to care for patients on long shifts.

Nurses "had to eat on the run; take a break when you got one," Toy said.

The new language also provides for staffing to cover for nurses on meals and breaks.

The contract affects more than 11,000 CNA-represented nurses at the University of California's five major hospitals in Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Davis, as well as student health centers at other UC campuses, making the contract one of the largest affecting nurses in the country, Idelson said.

For years, RNs and UC administrators have battled over short-term contracts; skirmishes that included strike threats in 2005 and again in 2010. Both times, the planned walkouts were barred by the courts.

"We've been at loggerheads over a number of years on a number of issues," California Nurses Association spokesman Charles Idelson said. "We've had some short-term settlements, but we haven't had a multiyear agreement since 2002."

University of California officials offered little comment on the agreement Monday, but called the pact "fair."

"We think the agreement is fair, and we hope it's ratified," said Dianne Klein, a UC spokeswoman.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call The Bee's Darrell Smith, (916) 321-1040.

• Read more articles by Darrell Smith