CSUDH instructors begin vote on strike
Daily Breeze 3/6/07
Union instructors began voting at the Carson campus, and 15 other CSU schools, after a 22-month labor impasse. Voting at the remaining seven campuses is set for Monday.
Faculty members say low pay and salary stagnation after hiring have prompted able instructors to bail out of the CSU system.
"We're getting a brain drain from these faculty who are leaving, and the commitment from the system to retain quality just isn't there," said Dave Bradfield, a veteran CSUDH music professor who heads the school's chapter of the California Faculty Association.
"We're losing faculty," he added. "The whole salary structure system is turned on its head and just isn't working."
California Faculty Association instructors and administrators remain at loggerheads on virtually all financial aspects of a proposed four-year contract.
The main sticking points are across-the-board pay increases each year, money to help faculty members recover from a wage freeze that was imposed during the state's 2002 budget crisis, and creating an equity pay fund to address what the union calls the "experience penalty." That situation involves new faculty members earning more at the outset than what experienced faculty members are being paid.
The union, which represents instructors, coaches, counselors and librarians, contends that faculty pay at colleges in the Cal State system is about 18 percent below that of comparable institutions nationally.
An impasse was declared in September, and mediation sessions were conducted in November and December. Fact-finding sessions involving administration and faculty representatives were held in January and February.
Faculty members want a 4 percent raise for this year, retroactive to July 2006, plus a 2.65 percent increase for all faculty members now eligible for step raises.
A starting full-time professor at CSUDH typically makes about $50,000, Bradfield said. About 60 percent of the school's faculty members teach classes on a part-time schedule.
The union also asked for a $5 million equity pay pool to address what it calls "salary inversion" -- the effect of new hires being brought in at starting salaries substantially higher than what is being paid to faculty with several years of experience.
The administration offered a 4 percent raise and no step increase, or a 3 percent general pay raise plus the 2.65 percent step increases. The equity pay pool wasn't part of the offer.
Similar issues are part of the impasse over the second, third and fourth years of the contract.
Voting will be conducted through Friday at 16 of the 23 affected campuses, including Dominguez Hills and Los Angeles.
A week of voting will begin Monday at the remaining seven universities, including Long Beach and Northridge.
The League of Women Voters will tally the votes March 19-20, with results to be announced March 21.
The union would likely organize a rolling strike of two days on each campus to minimize the impact on students, said Alice Sunshine, a union spokeswoman.
"In a rolling strike, most students would only miss one course," Sunshine said. "We also hope students will learn something about this."