Money, housing and more money were the dominant topics of the first Academic Senate meeting of the spring.
Anticipating a protracted impasse in contract negotiations, Cal State Long Beach’s Academic Senate endorsed a California Faculty Association strategy to issue a potential strike threat if the state university system fails to come closer to teachers’ demands for higher pay.
The strongly-worded endorsement emphasized the importance in reaching an agreement through a list of resolutions to both the California State University system and the CFA, citing the potential for academic distraction and lowered student and employee morale in the event of a strike.
Prior to the Senate vote on the endorsement, CFA regional representative Chuck Marchese passed out rallying fliers and strike pledge ballots emblazoned with the slogan, “I don’t want to strike but I will,” to the approximately 60 people attending the Thursday meeting.
Lydia Sondhi, the Long Beach CFA chapter president, urged faculty to stand together, send in the ballots and pass any extras to other faculty members. “This is what’s going on up and down the state,” Sondhi told the Senate. “Salary levels and the salary structure are broken.”
Sondhi said the statewide union has been without a contract since 2005 and hasn’t had a salary increase since 2002, when teachers received a 3.5 percent increase. The CSU has offered a 24.5 percent increase, Sondhi said, adding that most of that offer is through speculation on future state education budgets, as well as other factors.
“What it really amounts to is closer to something like 14.7 percent over four years,” Marchese said, citing recent pay increases for campus police and campus doctors at more than 20 percent as reasons to decline the most current CSU offer.
Robert Burtle, a computer
engineering major, said he was on the Associated Students Inc. judiciary board last spring and went with other ASI representatives to Sacramento to protest planned fee increases.
Burtle said he empathizes with faculty needs for more money but resents the union considering a strike as a solution to failed bargaining.
“The successful efforts of the California State Student Association (CSSA) in fighting fee hikes last year seems to be undermined by the CFA,” Burtle said. “Don’t they remember why they got into teaching?”
Sondhi said the negotiating process is in a “fact-finding” stage with an impartial panel charged with reviewing both sides and recommending a solution to the 21-month-long stalemate.
If no agreement is reached at the end of the 30-day fact-finding period, the CSU chancellor can impose the “last, best offer.” At that point, the union could be forced to either accept the terms of the last, best offer or take other actions, including possible walkouts, according to CFA’s Web site.
“We would be remiss if we didn’t plan for the worst and hope for the best,” said Sondhi. “We need a fair contract.”
Academic Senate Chairman Praveen Soni drew laughter from audience members following the vote by asking rhetorically, “Do I need to ask if this is unanimous?”
In other business, Mo Tidemanis, director of real estate for the CSULB Foundation, gave a bleak, yet optimistic, report on housing availability for faculty and staff. Tidemanis said ongoing development projects include a 48-unit block of condos built near CSU Fullerton. He said about 50 CSULB faculty members have applied to buy them.
Tidemanis also said he is hopeful for a project being considered to turn the recently closed Long Beach Press-Telegram newsroom building on Pine Avenue into 600 1,000 square-foot lofts. He said city planning had recently stalled, but he is optimistic details will be worked out.
Tidemanis said the U.S. Army Reserve Center at Willow Street and Grand Avenue – which has recently been declared surplus by the Army – is a possible development site for 75 condos. Another possibility Tidemanis said looks hopeful is a North Long Beach “Village Center” project by the North Long Beach Redevelopment Agency, which is set to break ground in about 18 months and is scheduled for completion in 2009.
Tidemanis said housing availability for faculty and staff is a great concern. He said he sent out 3,000 e-mails last year and of the more than 1,400 replies, 80 percent said they were interested or in need of affordable housing nearer to campus.
“It’s tough. I have to commute daily from my home in San Clemente,” Tidemanis said. “Long Beach is nice but it’s just too expensive.”
