CSUCI faculty members picket
Ventura Star 2/8/07
It was one of three such demonstrations in CSU's 23-campus system that day following an impasse with management over a new contract. Most of the remaining campuses have already held protests.
"We're trying to get the CSU administration to understand," said John Yudelson, a union leader and lecturer in business and communications. "If they continue, we'll strike."
The noon event was low-key and civil, as a few faculty members served pizza to students and staff members who turned up to listen and eat lunch.
Freshman Laura Sandoval, 18, of Santa Paula was one of those stopping by.
The commuting student heard about the protest from a teacher, but the labor dispute has not yet interfered with her education, she said.
"It could," she said. "If they start on a strike, classes are going to be canceled and time wasted."
The event had drawn a few dozen staff members and students by 12:30 p.m. Elsewhere around the state, protesters have put on large marches, said Alice Sunshine, spokeswoman for the instructors' union, the California Faculty Association.
"Today we had 350 people marching at San Francisco State," she said.
In an earlier protest at Sacramento State, demonstrators marched through the administration building and past the president's office, she said.
Faculty members attending the Camarillo event said they wanted to support instructors at other CSU campuses, but are pleased with their compensation. About 70 tenure-track faculty members and 170 lecturers working on short-term contracts are on the staff, Yudelson said.
President Richard Rush made good offers to faculty members to get the five-year-old campus open, some said.
"I'm gratified for what I have, but there are many other campuses where professors are in need of a raise," said Lillian Vega Çastaneda, an education professor who is president of the union's chapter at CSUCI.
On average, full professors in the CSU system make $86,107, tenured and probationary faculty $74,142 and lecturers $43,912. CSU management has proposed a 4 percent increase for the current year and 5.5 to 6.5 percent raises in the succeeding three years.
That would bring the average full professor's pay to $106,524 and the lecturer's to $54,324 by the 2009-10 academic year.
The CSU chancellor's office in Long Beach puts the value of the package at 24 percent, assuming all the funding materializes. Union leaders put the value at 15 percent because of contingencies and other factors.
Although the 4 percent raise for the current year is locked in, the raises in other years are contingent on budget appropriations, officials said.
But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and CSU Chancellor Charles Reed both expect the funds to be available, CSU spokeswoman Clara Potes-Fellow said.
The university also has agreed to pay 100 percent of the increased cost of health insurance, she said. The current contract for the 23,000 faculty members in the system expired in 2005 but has been extended.
Mediations between the parties ended in mid-December without an agreement. A fact-finder, who will make recommendations for resolving the issues, is due to start work this week.
A survey conducted last year showed that CSU faculty members had received raises of a little over 10 percent from 2001-02 to last year, but that it would take increases of 18 percent to bring them to parity with professors at similar institutions in the nation. The parity figure presumed no increases in pay for the current academic year.