CSU

The CSU faculty got what they deserved, a new contract that includes a significant raise. (h/t to eugene) The deal includes just about everything the instructors wanted. This was long overdue. Now the CFA members need to ratify the deal, which is not expected to be a problem.

A labor showdown between the California State University system and its faculty union was averted Tuesday with a tentative accord on a new contract that provides a guaranteed pay hike of 20.7 percent over four years for professors, lecturers, coaches and librarians.

Negotiators for the CSU administration and faculty reached the agreement after 23 months of labor talks and mediation, as well as a series of threatened strikes on the system's 23 university campuses.

The California Faculty Assocation plans to put the proposed contract to a vote of its 12,000 dues-paying members later this month, union president John Travis told reporters. If ratified by the faculty, CSU's governing Board of Trustees will vote on it.

"We expect our members to ratify this. We think it's a good deal," Travis said. "We pretty much got everything that we asked for."

The neutral fact finder was the key to this deal. Their report showed what the union had been saying: CSU faculty members were being paid much less than their peers. The "roadmap" that came out of that report was used heavily for the final accord.

This is fantastic news. A hearty congratulations is in order for faculty and CFA!

There are way too many things I want to write about today, so I am just going to condense them into one mostly linky post.

• An independent fact finding report by the contract mediator proved what the CSU faculty has been saying for years. They are being paid much less than professors at pier institutions. The report called for a 24.87% increase over four years, plus 10% in service step increase. The administration has agreed to use the report as a framework to negotiating a fair contract. The two sides have agreed to an extra ten day period to work out a deal without any strike activities.

  This is a positive step and hopefully a fair contract will be reached. These faculty members have been working without a contract for almost two years now. Frank Russo has more here.

• Skelton is a must read today. He takes Arnold to the woodshed for his comments about the presidential candidates. Arnold wants them to get specific about policy, particularly health care. Ironic, considering he was evasive and vague when running his own campaign last fall. And of course, it is not like he has actually found a legislator to introduce his health care proposal. It's still in the idea phase, not an actual piece of legislation.
• Albertsons grocery workers voted to authorize leadership to call a strike if and when necessary.
• There is a growing movement a sick-pay law at the national level.

The United States is virtually the only industrialized nation that does not mandate sick pay for private-sector employees. Nearly half of full-time workers — an estimated 57 million — don't have the benefit.

• This is just heartbreaking. Extreme poverty in California.
• Sen. Cogdill is pushing a program that would give people cash money to buy a cleaner vehicle in exchange for getting rid of their high-polluting one.

There is an amazing amount of solidarity among CSU faculty members, as evidenced in their strike vote. They have been negotiating patiently for years, to little avail. Now there will be rolling strikes across the CSU system. (h/t to atdleft)

Members of the union that represents faculty at the 23 campuses of the California State University system have voted to strike, potentially creating disruptions at campuses around the state, including Fullerton and Long Beach.

"We do not want to strike, but we will," John Travis, president of the California Faculty Association, said at a news conference this morning at Cal State Dominguez Hills announcing that 94 percent of union members who voted agreed to the job action. "We are a faculty that is fed up and we are a faculty that is ready to walk off the job."

Union officials said they plan to hold two-day strikes to minimize disruptions to student classes, to take place in April and May.

There will not be a massive shut down of classes for extended periods of time. The professors want to ensure their students' education is not severely disrupted by their fight for a fair wage.

The CSU administrators have hiked up their own salaries, raised student fees 79% in ten years, have $1.2 billion in reserves, but are still too cheap to bring their faculty member's salaries into line with peer institutions.

According to the California Faculty Association and its financial consultant, CSU's cash flow has been so consistent during the past five years that its non-discretionary accounts -- those funds that are not earmarked for specific programs -- have mushroomed. Most of the money is in bank accounts and short-term investments.

The reserve is "an excessive cushion at a time when the mission of the university is suffering," said faculty union spokeswoman Alice Sunshine. "Students are being burdened with more debt, classes have been cut, some campus budgets have been cut, and the faculty salaries are falling behind the cost of living."

The bond rating may be excellent, but it is students who are paying through the nose.

The outcome of the CFA strike vote will be announced tomorrow. From their press release:

For 20 months now the CSU faculty has been negotiating with the CSU Chancellor's office for a new contract. They have reached an agreement on everything but salary increases. CSU faculty lags well behind the national average for similar state institutions. They have even fallen behind the Community College faculty members' salary. The inequity is causing a dispiriting, but predictable brain drain from the faculty.

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.

CSU pays 13 to 23% below the average of 20 peer academic institutions. The proposal by the CSU Chancellors office would not even approach the closing that gap.

The strike vote starts today and will continue through the next two weeks. There is an independent fact-finding report currently being compiled. If it does not bring both sides back to the table and the strike authorization vote passes, then we may see rolling strikes by professors in the spring. They would occur campus-by-campus basis. It is the last option for these professors. They would much rather teach their classes than be on the picket line, but they may have no other choice but to exert that sort of leverage on the Chancellor's office.

There is much more over at the California Faculty Association page, including a set of illuminating charts and graphs. Lucas also has a post up on Calitics. The SacBee has a good chart of what sort of an increase CSU faculty would need to receive to equal the average salary of peer institutions.