Cal State nears faculty strike
Daily Breeze 3/22/07
A majority -- 94 percent -- of California Faculty Association members who took part in an election this month voted to permit the union's board of directors to call for a strike, union leaders said on the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus in Carson.
Eighty-one percent of the more than 11,000 dues-paying faculty union members eligible participated in the vote.
Faculty at Dominguez Hills -- where a starting full-time professor typically pulls down about $50,000, according to local union President Dave Bradfield -- held their vote March 5. The union's leadership said Wednesday they would not be releasing campus-specific vote counts.
Both sides agree CSU's professors and lecturers are paid less than peers at comparable institutions. But administrators said they made an offer to increase wages by nearly 25 percent over the next three years.
Union leaders dispute that most faculty would receive that much, questioning the mechanics of how the raises would be structured.
The average salary for CSU professors last fiscal year was $86,056, according to the California Postsecondary Education Commission. Professors at 20 comparison institutions earned on average of $105,496, CPEC found.
Average CSU salaries for lower-ranked associate professors, assistant professors and instructors also lagged behind those in the comparison group last fiscal year, CPEC data show.
In a sunken courtyard on the Carson campus, a throng of professors and pupils wielding signs reading "Raise Salaries, Not Student Fees" and "Faculty Working Conditions Are Student Learning Conditions" gathered outside the classroom where union leaders addressed the media.
"I think it's critically important that the chancellor understand that whatever game he's playing is impacting students," said John Thomlinson, CSUDH biology department chair, asserting that low salaries will decrease the school's ability to attract quality instructors.
Which in turn means fewer academic offerings, argued sociology student Chrisna Vanegas, 30.
"It affects us now and it's going to affect our children in the future," she said, a "I Don't Want to Strike, But I Will" sticker affixed to her jacket in support. "We need to do something now to prevent that."
Election results and turnout data for individual CSU campuses were not available Wednesday.
The union and the CSU system have been negotiating for nearly two years over a new contract. The two sides are at an impasse, divided on salary issues.
Union members are united in the confrontation with management, said CFA President John Travis.
"The California State University Board of Trustees and the administration of the California State University have to recognize that we are together on this," said Travis, a political science professor at Humboldt State University in Arcata. "We are a faculty that is fed up, and we are a faculty that's ready to walk off the job," he added.
The two sides are now reviewing recommendations from an independent fact-finder.
Under the statutory rules of the bargaining process, the union and the CSU administration are now in a 10-day "quiet period" in which they can discuss those recommendations and try to come to an agreement.
If the two sides fail to reach an accord before the quiet period ends and don't agree to continue talks, the union could begin job actions Monday. The fact-finder report will be made public at the end of the quiet period.
If approved by the CFA board of directors, initial job actions would consist of two-day "rolling strikes" at CSU campuses, union officials said. The strikes likely would begin in April and last several weeks, possibly into May.
Groups of CSU campuses would strike at different times over several weeks.
Most students at each campus would lose only one day of instruction during the two-day strikes, which would occur on consecutive days, Travis said. Most students follow either a Tuesday-Thursday class schedule or a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, he added.
The CSU has contingency plans for its 23 campuses to minimize disruption to students and employees should a strike occur, said CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed.
"We hope that today's announcement does not signal a predetermined outcome on behalf of the faculty union," he said. "That would be a disservice to faculty and students alike."
When the fact-finding report is made public, it will become clear that the CSU system has "gone to great lengths" to reach a settlement, Reed added.
During the rolling strikes, the university would tell students to come to school, said CSU spokeswoman Clara Potes-Fellow. Classes would continue for those faculty members who opt to teach during those days, she said.
The student unions, libraries and other student services would remain open, she added.
Cal State Long Beach lecturer Elizabeth Hoffman, a CFA statewide officer, said that adequate salaries are needed to attract and retain talented faculty.
The strike vote "shows how united the faculty are in their concern about the CSU," she said.
Dominguez Hills student Leslie Langie said she would support a strike. If faculty are not paid well enough, they may take better jobs out of state or leave the teaching profession, she said.
Langie said that the two-day strikes won't be very disruptive to students.
"It's not going to kill us," she said.
Chancellor's Office spokesman Paul Browning, who attended Wednesday's announcement, said afterward that CSU administration is "hoping it won't come to a strike" but reiterated the university's position: "We believe we've offered them an excellent salary compensation package. We're giving them all we can."
Browning later added that the school system is "considering the options and is open to resume bargaining if we see a possibility for mutual acceptable resolution."