‘Fight for Five’ protest marches on CSU offices during Board of Trustees meeting

A sea of red overtook the lawn and plaza in front of the California State University Office of the Chancellor Tuesday on Golden Shores in Downtown Long Beach where the California Faculty Association protested for a 5 percent salary increase.

“The folks who work in this building don’t teach any students,” CFA president Jennifer Eagan, dressed in the red ‘I don’t want to strike, but I will’ union shirt, shouted from the mobile stage. “The folks in this building think it’s their university.”

The crowd booed vehemently and began chanting, “Whose university? Our university,” as employees in the building looked out from office windows several stories high.

Ariana Sawyer | Daily 49er
Students for Quality Education, including CSULB junior hospitality management major Courtney Yamagiwa, center, hold signs and chant at the “Fight for Five” protest outside of a Board of Trustees meeting in the California State University Office of the Chancellor Nov. 17. Students said they were protesting a 2 percent tuition increase.

“The California State University values its employees and continues to prioritize compensation while also addressing other areas that support student success,” the CSU Office of the Chancellor said in a statement Monday. “The CSU remains committed to the collective bargaining process and achieving a negotiated agreement with the California Faculty Association.”

The CSU has offered a 2 percent salary increase, but the faculty said that is not enough. According to the CFA, faculty salaries have been slashed once inflation has been accounted for, and a five percent increase is the least they will accept.

California State University, Long Beach President Jane Close Conoley said on Thursday that she supports the faculty and that they are “woefully underpaid.”

“They definitely deserve a raise,” Conoley said. “If you compare their salaries to the UC salaries, and you know, they live in the same cities, they pay the same rent, but yet, there’s a marked discrepancy between their salaries.”

Also in attendance were CSU Students for Quality Education, who came to support the CSU faculty and to protest a 2 percent hike in student tuition, as well as CSULB student organizations La Raza and the American Indian Student Council.

Student posters displayed phrases like, “Suck my debt” and “Enjoy your money, I’ll be your doctor.”

The California Faculty Association’s “Fight for Five” march drew more than 1000 protesters who congregated outside of a Board of Trustees meeting, according to Steven Levinson, CFA Monterey Bay chapter president.

Kevin Wehr, Collective Bargaining Chair, was a speaker at the Board of Trustees meeting that took place during the march and protest.

“I told them not to underestimate our resolve because we have the capacity, if necessary, to shut down the system,” Wehr said.

Participants came by paddle-board, kayak, bus, car, bike and foot from as far away as CSU Humboldt in Northern California and as nearby as CSULB, which contributed some 150 faculty members and 20 students according to CSULB CFA chapter president and literature professor Douglas Domingo-Foraste.

Domingo-Foraste arrived with the CSULB protesters in a red double-decker bus.

“CFA faculty have every right to present their side of the issues to the Board of Trustees,” Office of the Chancellor spokesperson Toni Molle said in an email. “This is part of the process.”

The CSU and CFA are still engaged in the process of fact finding until early December. Fact finding allows both sides to present their arguments to a three-person panel, made up of one representative from each side and one neutral party. According to a release from the CSU, fact-finding hearings are scheduled for Nov. 23 and Dec. 7.

Fact finding is the last step in the formal negotiation process, according to the CFA. In early October, both sides met with a mediator, but were unable to reach a resolution.

The CFA announced on Nov. 4 that its members had voted to authorize a strike by an overwhelming 94.4 percent.

The strike would take place in the spring 2016 semester. Specific strike plans have yet to be made by CFA, but “whether or not [it] does go down hinges on Chancellor White’s decision,” Eagan said after the announcement on Nov. 4.

“The last thing we want to do is harm students, of course,” Dorothy Wills, a Cal Poly Pomona professor and CFA spokesperson, said. “But the administration’s policies are hurting students every single day.”

Chancellor White and the Board of Trustees will vote today on whether to raise the cap on executive salaries, according to Molle.

“CSU built up a lot of goodwill in the legislature this year, and my colleagues and I appreciated the university’s approach of no tuition-increase threats, their relative restraint on executive compensation, and their working collaboratively with students, faculty, staff, and alumni to make CSU’s case,” said California State Assembly Speaker Toni G. Atkins (D-San Diego), who is also a member of the CSU Board of Trustees, in a statement.

“Stonewalling on needed and deserved salary increases for faculty will chip away at legislators’ confidence in the system, and maintaining that confidence is imperative as we fight to bring additional funding to CSU.”

In June, Gov. Jerry Brown approved an additional $97 million for the CSU system.

Micayla Vermeeren also contributed to this article.

Article was updated at 11:14 p.m.