The University of Massachusetts Society of Professors and Faculty Staff Union (MSP-FSI) voted Wednesday night to approve a three-year contract providing for a gradual 25 per cent pay raise.

The new contract, replacing one that ran out June 30, included additional 3 percent raises for merit and raises for part-time faculty members on both the Amherst and Boston campuses of UMass, Peter P. D'Errico, president of MSP, the union's Amherst branch, said yesterday.

He added that the union had been working under a continuation clause in the old contract since June 30.

Terence Burke, associate chancellor at the UMass-Amherst campus and a member of the administration's negotiating team, said yesterday that under the new contract UMass will consult the union before laying off staff members or cutting existing programs.

The union had originally asked for annual cost of living pay increases, Charles A. Bowen Jr., president of the MSP-FSU's coordinating committee, said yesterday, adding, "I wouldn't call this contract beautiful, when it has a raise under the inflation rate."

The contract's terms have been in effect since the UMass Board of Trustees approved them yesterday, D'Errico said, but he added that Gov. Edward J. King and the Massachusetts legislature still must grant state money for the actual funding of the pay raises.