If the faculty of the California State University system had any doubts about carrying out a one-week strike authorized back in October for the first week of Spring Semester, Jan. 22-26, while labor negotiations were still ongoing, those doubts evaporated in a dramatic moment during a bargaining session on Jan. 9. About 20 minutes into the session, CSU administration representatives announced an ultimatum: Take a 5-percent salary increase or face massive layoffs. Then they walked out.
“It was shocking,” says Meghan O’Donnell, a CSUMB lecturer and member of the California Faculty Association negotiating team. She describes the confrontation as the ugliest she’s seen. “Anger doesn’t even express where the faculty are. They feel like [CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia] has just turned their back on them and is indifferent to how it will impact students,” O’Donnell says.
The CFA is asking for a 12-percent increase, among other demands. “Anything less than that is a pay cut in real dollars,” O’Donnell says. The union wants the lowest paid workers, lecturers who teach most of the classes, to make more than the current average for a lecturer with an advanced degree of less than $60,000 a year.
In a statement released by the CSU after its representatives walked out of the meeting, the university announced a 5-percent increase would go into effect on Jan. 31. Anything more would lead to “massive cuts to campuses – including layoffs” and would jeopardize “the CSU’s educational mission.” O’Donnell says an independent analysis of the CSU’s finances – including reserves and investment accounts – shows otherwise.
The union will take the 5-percent raise, “but we’re going to strike the rest,” O’Donnell says. “Our goal is to shut the system down.”
CSUMB had the highest percentage of faculty on any CSU campus that voted for the strike, 95 percent of those who chose to vote. Members plan on picket lines at all entrances to CSUMB. A notice on the university’s website states that the campus will be “fully operational” and that “students should return to campus as planned.”