CSU faculty union sets dates for five-day strike

By Josh Dulaney, Long Beach Press Telegram, and Dani Anguiano, danguiano@chicoer.com

POSTED: 02/08/16, 6:03 PM PST 

Union leaders for California State University faculty on Monday announced strike dates across all campuses should they not receive the pay raise they’ve demanded for nearly a year, calling the threatened walkout a historic labor action in the nation’s largest public university system.

Jennifer Eagan, president of the California Faculty Association, said the five-day strike is targeted for April 13-15 and April 18-19, with picket lines at all 23 campuses, and professors not showing up for classes, holding office hours or attending committee meetings.

“This is a historic strike if it happens,” said Eagan, during a news conference at the union’s Sacramento headquarters. “It will impact CSU for a long time.”

At Chico State University, faculty are preparing for the possibility of a strike, but are hoping the union and management can reach an agreement before that happens, Chico State professor and CFA treasurer Susan Green said.

“We don’t want to strike, but we will,” Green said. “We’re still hopeful that we can find some sort of solution, but, if not, we need to do what we have to.”

Green said this issue is particularly important at Chico State, where she said faculty are among the lowest-paid in the CSU system, and the school’s Academic Senate voted in favor of a resolution of no-confidence in President Paul Zingg and other executives last fall.

“All faculty, particularly at Chico State, have demonstrated that they want a greater voice on campus,” Green said. “But, it’s not just Chico, it’s 26,000 people across the system who will be striking as well.”

The Chancellor’s Office released a statement Monday saying campuses are preparing for the possibility of a strike.

“If a strike occurs, campuses intend to remain open,” the Chancellor’s Office said. “Many classes will be offered, and students should check with their instructors regarding the status of their classes. The strike should not interfere with students being able to complete their semester and quarter courses and graduate on time.”

Green said if there is a strike, faculty at Chico State will notify their students.

“Classes will be canceled, and we will talk with our students and tell them we will not be there,” Green said. “Students well understand that faculty have been fighting for good conditions for a lot of years, and they share our concerns.”

The strike would be the largest since collective bargaining across the system began in the early 1980s. The faculty union has held walkouts in the past. CFA held a one-day walkout in November 2011 at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson and at Cal State East Bay in Hayward.

The union, which represents more than 26,000 tenured and tenure-track instructional faculty, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches in CSU, has reached impasse with the Long Beach-based Chancellor’s Office on pay for 2015-16, with CSU offering a 2 percent increase, and CFA seeking a 5 percent pay boost.

The union last fall voted to strike if the university does not agree to a 5 percent raise.

Management says a 2 percent pay increase would cost $33 million, but the union’s 5 percent demand, which includes an additional 2.65 percent service increase for eligible professors, would cost $102.3 million. They say “me-too” clauses with other unions would trigger similar increases for other unions and would cost an additional $37.9 million.

CFA and management opened salary talks last May and most recently entered fact-finding sessions, with a three-person panel conducting reviews of each side’s case. A report out of the sessions is scheduled to be released in mid-March. The union is authorized to strike, if an agreement still isn’t reached.

Eagan said union leaders voted over the weekend to set the strike dates. If a strike doesn’t bring the Chancellor’s Office back to the bargaining table, Eagan said, the union “will plan further actions.”

The union has hounded Chancellor Timothy P. White during his campus stops across California this year. Professors have held up signs demanding the 5 percent raise, and disrupted open meetings where White was scheduled to hold question-and-answer sessions.