Cal State contract agreement puts faculty strike plans on hold
Fresno Bee 4/4/07
Faculty had threatened to begin a series of two-day strikes on CSU campuses across the state starting next week if an agreement was not reached. But on Tuesday, both sides came close to settling a two-year contract dispute for the nation's largest public university system.
The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU's 23,000-member faculty, will vote on the deal in the next few weeks, said union president John Travis.
"We pretty much got everything that we'd asked for," Travis said. "We're pretty satisfied with this agreement."
The terms of the new contract guarantee a nearly 21 percent pay raise over four years for all faculty, with some members eligible for pay hikes exceeding 31 percent.
"This agreement strikes a realistic balance between providing deserved raises to our faculty and our limited financial resources," CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said.
The total pay package would cost the CSU system more than $400 million over four years, university officials said.
The salary dispute had been the main sticking point in negotiations that began in 2005.
Base salary increases under the agreement would raise the average salary for a tenure-track faculty member from $74,000 to $90,749. The average salary for a full-time tenured professor would jump from $86,000 to $105,465 by the end of the contract period.
Administrators and faculty representatives had agreed to a 10-day contract extension last month that set an April 6 deadline to settle their differences.
The extension gave both sides time to hammer out a contract under guidelines in an independent report that said CSU faculty salaries lagged significantly behind those of professors at other institutions.
The tentative agreement conforms largely to the report's recommendations, officials from both sides said.