CSU faculty vote today on strike
Sacramento Bee 3/5/07
After four years with only one small raise, she moved back home to Florida. Her mother has multiple sclerosis, and Matisons couldn't afford plane tickets for frequent visits.
She found work at a tutoring company -- earning more money per hour when she broke down how much time she put into the job.
"The CSU in particular is at the critical point of deciding what kind of faculty they want," Matisons said.
The message from faculty is clear: Pay employees better.
Today, the union representing faculty on the 23 CSU campuses will hold its first-ever vote to authorize a strike if contract talks collapse.
The voting will take place over the next two weeks.
The California Faculty Association has been negotiating with the CSU chancellor's office for nearly two years over a new contract. Health and retirement benefits are not in dispute. The union wants larger across-the-board raises than what the administration is offering. The union also is opposed to the administration's discretionary "merit pay" proposal.
If an independent fact-finding report does not bring both sides back to the table this month -- and if the strike authorization vote passes -- professors will implement a rolling walkout, campus-by-campus, later this spring.
CSU officials maintain that faculty deserve a pay raise. But Paul Browning, a spokesman at CSU headquarters in Long Beach, said the strike vote is "a little premature" because the bargaining process has yet to end.
While senior-ranking professors in the CSU system earn an average salary of $86,000, incoming professors make around $50,000 and have been feeling more squeezed by the ongoing contract dispute.
Last April, 40 percent of junior faculty members at California State University, Sacramento, with less than six years of experience said they were considering quitting, according to a campus survey. In November, it rose to 54 percent.
Several have already found new jobs.
"A lot of it was driven by being fed up with Sac State, to be honest with you," said government professor Chris Witko, who is taking a better-paying job at St. Louis University in the fall after only a few years at CSUS.
Sociology professor Kevin Wehr conducted the junior faculty survey. He said younger professors are standing firm with the union, even though their immediate needs for a pay raise might be greater than older professors who don't have student loans and who already own homes. Veteran professors who have climbed to the top of the salary ladder also are asking for more money.
The California Postsecondary Education Commission says CSU pays 13 percent to 27 percent below the average of 20 peer institutions.
"Nobody likes a whiner, but the fact of the matter is the wages are stagnating," said Wehr, at CSUS since 2003. "Everybody here has a strong claim to being underpaid. I'm going to refuse to pit myself against senior faculty."
Last year, a group of younger professors at CSUS clashed with the union when they went straight to the top for help. President Alexander Gonzalez agreed to give 160 one-time "research" stipends up to $5,400 to professors earning less than $52,500.
James Sobredo, an ethnic studies professor who negotiated the deal on behalf of the junior faculty, said the money helped. He said it also signaled to union leaders that their contingent was organized. The union's proposal includes guaranteed raises for junior faculty to catch up in wages.
"We're together on these issues," Sobredo said. "I'm there on the picket line with them."
Cecil Canton, a criminal justice professor and union leader at CSUS, said there's no fissure with younger professors.
"I've never seen faculty so much in accord on this," Canton said. "People are angry. We've finally reached the tipping point."