By snoadmin
The California Faculty Association (CFA) held a meeting Tuesday in the Chart Room in the University Dining Plaza that sought to informed attending Cal State Long Beach faculty of the possible plans for the two-day rolling strike.
According to Elizabeth Hoffman, state bargaining team member and CSULB vice president for lectures, if faculty demands are not met, a vote from the entire CSU faculty across the state will decide whether or not the strike will take place.
“We want a fair contract that protects CSU and helps us get back to what we want to be doing, which is teaching and research. We feel that we we’re forced into it,” Hoffman said.
She said that some of the things in demand include more permanent faculty members without raising fees to pay for them, having enough classes for students and keeping perceived valued faculty within the CSU system.
If the systemwide administration and the CFA cannot see eye to eye, the vote for a strike will take place sometime in March, according to Hoffman.
“We want the chancellor to listen to the people. It’s the people’s university,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman spoke about how hard students have to work to put themselves through school, and the hardships she said they feel when the classes they need to graduate are unavailable due to a lack of sufficient space or funding.
“It’s about what is fair, not just what we want. It’s about way more than a paycheck,” Hoffman said.
The meeting was for faculty only. Neither reporters nor photographers were allowed in the proceedings.
The CFA informed faculty of the problems it said teachers and students are currently facing. The meeting also answered questions the faculty had, what they need to do and the ramifications of the possible strike.
The CFA’s motto, documented on fliers and even a few T-shirts, was: “I don’t want to strike, but I will…and I know you don’t want to either.”
According to a document passed out at the closed meeting that answered questions about a possible strike, “CSU faculty do not want to harm students. If the chancellor refuses to negotiate with us, we may be forced to call a two-day strike, rolling from campus to campus across the state. At this point, we are not planning for an open-ended walkout.”
The two-day strike, in the CFA’s estimation, will minimize the impact on students because each of the 23 CSU campuses will take turns striking for the two days.
David Bradfield, CFA southern associate vice president, said, “We are trying to minimize the impact on students and maximize the impact on the CSU central administration.”
(Far left) Denise Kortheuer, vice president for lectures at CSULB, (left) Amy Sarka, staff member for the California Faculty Association, help Linda DeGuire of the CSULB Math Department (right) sign in for the closed meeting that discussed a possible systemwide strike.
