The California Faculty Association (CFA) and the California State University (CSU) administration reached a tentative contract April 3, that settled negotiations and put the proposed CSU systemwide strikes on hold until the contract is fully ratified.
The tentative agreement reported a 20.7 percent salary increase over a four-year period for faculty members, including that “in the next four months, everyone will get a 7.7 percent raise-with 3 percent retroactive to July 1, 2006.”
Alice Sunshine, CFA communications director, said the contract was very similar to the recommendations proposed by the nonpartisan fact-finding report. She said that those doing the bargaining have been communicating with faculty members to make sure the agreement is acceptable.
Had the CFA and CSU not reached an agreement by April 6, CSU campuses were prepared to strike this week.
Claudia Keith of CSU Public Affairs and Sunshine both said they are not expecting student fee increases as a result of the salary increases. Keith said the CSU is receiving funds from the government to help cover the costs, and Sunshine said a fee increase is completely unnecessary. Fees have not been historically used to pay faculty members; the idea of student fee increases to cover faculty payroll is a new concept.
Keith said members of the union have to vote to ratify the contract, and then the CSU Board of Trustees will do the same. According to Sunshine, the voting could take place during the last week of April or the first week of May. She said the voting could also last two weeks to allow everyone to cast a vote. Keith said she expects the contract to be finalized in early May.
Elizabeth Hoffman, CFA associate vice president of lecturers and Cal State Long Beach English department lecturer, participated in the negotiations. With this new contract, Hoffman said the CSU system will be able to hire new faculty and keep good teachers on staff.
According to Hoffman, everyone seemed “uniformly happy” with the contract. Hoffman also said that the contract is a little better than the fact finder’s recommendations.
Hoffman said after two years of bargaining, coming to an agreement will be good for the CSUs, CFA and students. Hoffman said she thinks and hopes that everyone will vote in favor of it. However, Sunshine also said that there is always a chance for the contract to not pass because the CFA is a democracy and everyone has a chance to voice their opinion through the ballot.
