CSU contract extended
Monterey Herald 3/26/07
"I'm very happy about it," said Rafael Gomez, the California Faculty Association chapter president for CSU-Monterey Bay. "We want the chancellor's office and the board of trustees to go back to the table."
The 10-day extension gives both sides time to hammer out an agreement under guidelines in an independent report that recommended a nearly 25 percent pay raise for CSU's 23,000-member faculty, officials said. The report was released Sunday.
''I'm optimistic that a settlement can be reached during these 10 days,'' CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said.
CSU-Monterey Bay spokeswoman Joan Weiner called the developments "positive."
In a telephone news conference, California Faculty Association president John Travis also called the extension a ''positive sign,'' though the union has not dropped its threat of a strike authorized by faculty voters last week.
"It's not granting us all the things we hoped we could win," Travis said, although the recommendations came "close enough."
Gomez said the fact-finder "was able to point out that we as faculty get paid approximately 18 percent less than faculty around the country. So that has been established."
During a news conference Sunday, Reed would not discuss details regarding faculty salaries but said he was committed to using the report as a ''framework'' for an agreement.
''The fact-finder tried to be fair to both sides and kind of split the difference,'' Reed said.
Union officials said that despite the extension, faculty would continue to prepare for a series of two-day strikes in April in case a settlement was not reached.
"We will continue planning until we get a fair contract," Gomez said.
Union representatives at CSU-Monterey Bay had expected to be consulted today or Tuesday about "when we would be willing or able to begin the rolling strikes," Gomez said, but that the time frame may have changed in light of Sunday's developments.
The rolling strikes would move from campus to campus throughout the month, to avoid disrupting the education of more than 400,000 CSU students, union leaders said.
"We really don't want the strike, but we will continue planning until we get a fair contract," Gomez said.
If faculty still cannot obtain a contract after the rolling strikes, Travis said he would not rule out the possibility of a systemwide walkout.
"There will be a contingency involved..." he said. "One could be taking the entire faculty out at the same time." Although faculty "don't want to hurt" students' education, he said union organizers could not rule out the possibility of a walkout for the rest of the school year.
Administrators have said CSU has plans in place to minimize disruptions if faculty do go on strike, but were doing everything they could to reach a settlement.
Of the system's 23,000 full-and part-time faculty members, 11,000 are union members, said union officials. Among the recommendations in the fact-finder's report are greater protections for temporary and part-time faculty.
Andy Merrifield, a political science professor at Sonoma State University, said there is no direct relationship between faculty salary demands and recently announced plans by administrators to increase student tuition.
"They have the money, but it's not a priority for them," he said.
Union representatives have criticized the proposed student fee hike, saying the university system currently has $1.25 billion in "cash and near-cash" and its bond rating was recently raised by Moody's Investors Service.
"So the call for increased fees is even less needed and any claim of poverty is less strong," Merrifield said.