Faculty strike at CSU averted
Ventura Star 4/4/07
"We didn't get everything we wanted, but we got close to what we wanted," said John Travis, president of the California Faculty Association.
Under the agreement, faculty members will get a 20.7 percent raise over four years. Beyond that, some faculty members will get additional step increases, bringing their raise to 24.9 percent.
The new pay scale puts CSU faculty members on par with their colleagues nationwide, union officials said.
Average salary for a full professor will be $105,465 after four years, up from $86,000. Faculty members on tenure track will receive an average salary of $90,749 after four years, up from $74,000.
"CSU employees, including our faculty, are the university's greatest asset," Chancellor Charles B. Reed said in a prepared statement. "This agreement strikes a realistic balance between providing deserved raises to our faculty and our limited financial resources."
Faculty and administrators at CSU Channel Islands welcomed the tentative agreement, with union leader John Yudelson saying he's optimistic that it will be ratified later this month.
"It's looking very positive," Yudelson said. "I'm hoping this spirit of compromise will continue so faculty can get their mental energies off this huge issue and back into the classroom and research where it belongs."
Jessica LaRoe, student body president, also welcomed the chance to get the focus back on learning.
"This has affected students," LaRoe said. "Just having the threat of a strike is negative to the morale on campus. Having this resolved, we can focus on the campus as a whole, as well as student learning, and that's a good thing."
The union has been negotiating a contract with CSU for nearly two years. The union had planned to strike at the 23 CSU campuses starting next week if an agreement was not reached by Friday.
The union and CSU regents still must ratify the contract, Travis said. The union hopes to do that later this month, once the contract language is finalized, he said.
Total cost of the contract is expected to be $400 million over the next four years.