After mediation efforts broke down Friday, the state mediator authorized contract negotiations between the California Faculty Association and the Cal State University to move on to the next step, fact-finding.
This could lead to another faculty strike in coming months, according to an email from CFA President Lilian Taiz.
The strike would last for two days, and it would take place at all 23 CSU campuses.
“We have been going through a very lengthy process to reach an agreement with the CSU administration,” Taiz said in a conference call. “While we have one more piece of the process to go through, we felt very strongly that we have to take a position on our next steps, should this not yield an agreement.”
Starting Monday, faculty at all CSU campuses will begin a two-week voting session on whether to authorize a strike.
The CSU, however, believes the vote is a “premature decision.”
“We’re going into another stage of bargaining … and, unfortunately, the union has taken premature steps to take strike votes,” CSU spokesman Erik Fallis said.
Although CFA and CSU have come to tentative agreements on some issues in the contract, each group refuses to budge on others.
According to Fallis, CSU has proposed status quo on many issues but has proposed changes to other aspects of the contract, such as appointments and evaluation of faculty.
“This appointment change would say before removing a faculty member from the status they are to the tenure appointment, we make sure that there’s actually a performance evaluation,” Fallis said.
However, CFA has rejected this proposal.
“We do not want to have others who are far away from the classroom [executives] making those decisions on who’s best to teach,” CFA Vice President Kim Geron said.
A few of the proposals CFA has brought forth concern class sizes, faculty retention, and fighting Extended Education, but CSU is not cooperating with any of them, Taiz said.
According to Fallis, CSU’s primary reasoning for this is the implementation cost of CFA’s proposals.
Fallis said the minimum estimate of the cost would be $504.1 million.
The CSU also faces the possibility of a $200 million cut if state tax initiatives aren’t approved this November.
“The costs unfortunately would get passed on to the students in one way or another,” Fallis said.
In fact-finding, CFA and CSU will each present their proposals to a three-part panel, including one person representing the CSU, one representing CFA, and one playing a neutral role.
CFA and CSU can come to an agreement at any time in fact-finding, but if they don’t, the neutral party will write a fact-finding report including recommendations on how to settle the contract.
However, the fact-finding report is not binding, according to Taiz.
Fallis said if the two groups do not find an agreement through fact-finding, the CSU would have the right to implement whatever terms and conditions it chooses to.
“Then the faculty union would have the ability to call a strike,” Fallis said.
Taiz said if the union votes to strike, it would be the largest university strike in the history of the state.
“It is going to be powerful,” she said.
CFA members striked at Cal State Dominguez Hills and Cal State East Bay last November.