Picketing set over CSUCI negotiations
Ventura Star 2/3/07
"We're just fed up," said John Yudelson, a business and communication lecturer at CSU Channel Islands. Yudelson also is vice president of the California Faculty Association's CSUCI chapter. He represents some 150 nontenured faculty. The Camarillo campus has about 240 tenured and nontenured faculty members, Yudelson said. All are represented by the CFA union.
The picket line at CSUCI is one of many being held at California State University campuses around the state. In all, the CFA represents some 23,000 instructors at CSU's 23 campuses.
"Our slogan is, we don't want to strike, but we will if we have to," said John Travis, CFA president and political science professor at Humboldt State University.
Union and university representatives have been in contract negotiations since April 2005.
Travis said CFA has numerous concerns over what administrators are offering, starting with salary.
Pay levels for CSU faculty lag those of comparable institutions, Travis said, adding that the average annual income of a full-time CSU faculty member "is in the low $70,000s."
University administrators say they're offering a 24.5 percent pay increase over four years, a proposal they say is very generous.
But union leaders estimate faculty would really receive only about a 15 percent salary increase over a four-year period.
"Right now, faculty can only count on getting 15 percent," said Alice Sunshine, communications director for the CFA. The remaining 10 percent is contingent on many factors, Sunshine said, including whether the governor puts extra money in the budget for CSU faculty pay raises every year.
Some of the 10 percent would be put in a budget under the control of campus administrators, who would decide which faculty merited the money.
"Deciding who's entitled to this money could get extremely political," Yudelson said, adding that professors who have incurred an administrator's disfavor might not get any of this money.
While faculty members do not want a strike, they will hold one if needed, said Travis, noting a considerable level of unhappiness among faculty statewide after nearly 20 months of negotiations.
Faculty members have been without a contract since June 2005, Travis said.
Claudia Keith, a CSU spokeswoman at the chancellor's office in Long Beach, said the administration would also like to see faculty members get the salary that they deserve. Unfortunately, that has been impossible since union negotiators rejected CSU's offer, she said.
Keith said CSU negotiators also are offering to pay the increases in medical insurance premiums, which would be retroactive to July.
A mediator was called in after an impasse was declared, but an agreement was not forthcoming.
The union and the university are about to enter "fact-finding," during which each side will again present its position. Should an agreement not be reached, the university will be able to impose its last, best offer to faculty, Yudelson said.
The faculty can then accept or reject the offer. A strike could then be called, provided a majority of the union membership voted for it.
It would be the first time in CSU's history that faculty members have struck over failed contract negotiations, Travis said.
Among the job actions being considered would be "a rolling two-day strike." CFA representatives say such action would be designed to minimize the number of classes students have to miss.
"We don't want to injure the students' education," Sunshine said. Still, faculty members may have no choice but to strike "to defend the quality of education," Sunshine said.
Yudelson said faculty members have received only a 3.5 percent general salary increase "in almost five years," while "student fees have almost doubled in the past 3 1/2 years."
The CSU Board of Trustees recently approved a 4 percent pay raise for 28 of the university system's highest-paid executives. The increase came just days after students learned they could face a 10 percent increase in tuition this fall. The executive pay raise is retroactive to July 1.
That action raises CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed's annual salary from $362,500 to $377,000. Reed also receives $12,000 a year in car allowance.
CSUCI President Richard Rush's salary is going from $231,624 a year to $240,889. Rush also gets a $60,000 housing allowance and a $12,000 car allowance.
Yudelson said while some CSUCI faculty members are unhappy with Reed and others in his office, faculty members have been very happy with Rush and top administrators at the Camarillo campus.
"We think we got the best on the Channel Islands campus," Yudelson said. "They've worked hard to build the university and maintain a positive relationship with the faculty,"
The faculty picket line at CSUCI is scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in front of the campus Bell Tower.
Faculty members at California State University, Northridge, also are scheduled to picket Wednesday.