Sacramento,
CA—Despite an improved budget situation and extensive research showing that
faculty play a critical role in student success, the California State
University administration has consistently failed to invest in CSU faculty.
In
fact, for at least a decade, regardless of the ups and downs in state funding
and in CSU tuition charged to students, or increases in the cost of living,
faculty pay has remained stagnant.
Trustees
have not budged from the 2% offer they made last year. CSU faculty are calling
for a 5% increase that would restore some of the purchasing power they had 10
years ago. In rejecting CFA’s proposal management negotiators say they “have
other priorities.”
Their
unwillingness to be flexible despite increased state funding is at the core of
the conflict that could lead to a strike of CSU faculty this term.
CFA
President Jennifer Eagan says that CSU management at the Chancellor’s Office in
Long Beach is out of touch with what it takes to ensure quality education on
the campuses. She points out that while faculty pay has stagnated and fallen
well behind inflation, salaries for a growing number of administrators and
executives have increased.
Should
the California Faculty Association strike over what it says has been a
persistent underfunding of teaching staff during the past decade, union
umbrella groups for counties encompassing 19 of the 23 CSU campuses – including
the Sacramento Central Labor Council – have promised their own sanctions on the
university.
The
number of strike sanctions from Central Labor Councils throughout the state continues to grow. This week,
the Alameda Labor Council adopted strike sanctions, and the Butte-Glenn CLC and
Kern, Inyo and Mono Counties CLC also issued strike sanctions recently.
Strike
sanction means that the other union members within that labor council won’t
cross our picketlines. In addition to our classrooms being empty, strike
sanction would mean UPS and Postal Service workers won’t deliver mail or
packages to campus mailrooms, public buses will not enter campus, and
construction workers will cease building.
The
Academic Professionals of California, which represents Unit 4 workers in the
CSU, also are among our supporters. APC President Patrick Choi and Vice
President Dago Argueta carried a solidarity banner to chapter 13 chapter
meetings on campus over the past two months as a way to show support for our
Fight for Five.
“APC and CFA have a history of
working together with our mutual assistance agreement,” said Patrick Choi, APC
President. “We support CFA and their members’ stance in reaching a fair and
equitable contract as all faculty and staff have suffered real income
losses during the last eight years.”
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