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Education Jan 23, 2024
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Faculty members at California State University campuses are expected to return to work Tuesday after a tentative agreement was reached with the California Faculty Association, ending the union’s planned five-day systemwide strike after one day.
The agreement includes a 5% general salary increase for all faculty retroactive to July 1, 2023, a 5% general salary increase for all faculty on July 1, 2024, (contingent on the state not reducing base funding to the CSU), raising the salary floor for the lowest-paid faculty in salary ranges A and B and a 2.65% salary step increase for the 2024-25 academic year, association President Charles Toombs announced Monday night.
The agreement also increases paid parental leave from six to 10 weeks; provides a union representative for dealings between faculty and police; improves access to gender-inclusive restrooms and lactation spaces, and a pathway to monitor issues of access; and provides support for lecturer engagement in service work, Toombs said.
The agreement also extends the contract that has been in effect since 2022 one year to June 30, 2025.
“The collective action of so many lecturers, professors, counselors, librarians, and coaches over these last eight months forced CSU management to take our demands seriously,” Toombs said in a statement. “This tentative agreement makes major gains for all faculty at the CSU.”
CSU Chancellor Mildred García said she was “extremely pleased and deeply appreciative that we have reached common ground with CFA that will end the strike immediately.”
“The agreement enables the CSU to fairly compensate its valued, world- class faculty while protecting the university system’s long-term financial sustainability,” Garcia said in a statement.
“With the agreement in place, I look forward to advancing our student- centered work — together — as the nation’s greatest driver of social mobility and the pipeline fueling California’s diverse and educated workforce.”
A spokeswoman for the system advised students to look for messages from their instructors regarding adjustments to their classes.
The tentative agreement will require ratification by the union and California State University Board of Trustees.
In wet weather Monday, about 29,000 faculty members and other employees across the 23-campus CSU system represented by the association walked off the jobs in their ongoing dispute with the university over salary, workload, health and safety concerns, parental leave and class sizes, among other issues.
While the university sought to downplay campus disruptions stemming from the massive walkout — citing “misinformation” about classes being canceled — it was unclear how many, if any, classes were actually going on as scheduled during the first day of the spring semester.
“Classes are not canceled,” the university said in a statement Monday. “Individual faculty members who decide to strike will cancel their own classes. … There have been no changes to the published spring academic calendar, and the strike will not interfere with students’ ability to complete their courses and graduate on time.”
Pickets had been scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. Monday across the system, but some strikers were out as early as 4:30 a.m., braving rains that hit the Southern California region.
“We are going to show up and just prepare to be wet and cold today,” Jenny Hall, an environmental studies professor at CSU Dominguez Hills, told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
